GenOn Energy Holdings,[1] formerly Mirant Corporation, was a subsidiary of GenOn Energy, and is now a part of NRG Energy.
The company was spun off from its former parent, Southern Company, on April 2, 2001.[2] The company was merged into GenOn Energy on 3 December 2010.[3] The company then became part of NRG Energy in December 2012.[4]
Mirant operated 13 plants in the states of California, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and Virginia and has the capacity to generate approximately 10,300 MW of electricity.
History
Southern beginnings and spinoff
Mirant began its corporate existence in 1981 as Southern Electric International (SEI), a small consulting division of Southern Company that provided engineering and technical services to industrial companies, domestic and international utilities. With the Energy Policy Act of 1992 deregulation arrived in the US electric power sector, and SEI ventured into global markets with the acquisition of a 50% stake in Freeport Power, a Bahamian utility. In the years to come, other acquisitions followed, notably the acquisition of a British distribution utility - South Western Electricity Board later renamed SWEB (now known as Western Power Distribution); a controlling interest in Hong Kong based Consolidated Electric Power Asia (CEPA), a stake in a German utility BEWAG, controlling interest in Empresa Electrica del Norte Grande, S. A. (EDELNOR) in Chile, and a hydroelectric generating facility in Argentina known as Hydroelectrica Alicura; giving it worldwide business interests in the Caribbean, Asian, South American and European energy markets. On the domestic front the company forged a joint venture in 1999 with Houston-based Vastar Energy to create Southern Company Energy Marketing, an electricity and gas trading company. That same year the company also acquired power generation facilities in New England (Canal station, Martha's Vineyard Diesels, Kendall Station), New York (Lovett and Bowline stations), California (Pittsburg, Potrero and Contra Costa stations). That same year SEI was renamed Southern Energy, in keeping with the broader theme of the products and markets that it pursued. Soon afterwards, its biggest domestic acquisition to date came in December 2000 with the purchase of the Morgantown, Chalk Point, Dickerson and Potomac River power generating assets from Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO). After an initial public offering of Southern Energy common stock in the fall of 2000, parent Southern Company completely spun off its interests in Southern Energy in April 2001 and a new publicly listed entity named Mirant Corporation began trading on the New York Stock exchange with the ticker symbol MIR.
Operations
- Mirant's Morgantown Generating Station, located near the unincorporated town of Morgantown, Maryland, was ranked as the best coal-fired plant in terms of heat-rate efficiency in the United States in Electric Power & Light magazine's 2004 survey of power plants.
- The Dickerson Generating Station, located near Dickerson, Maryland, and other Mirant Mid-Atlantic sites are Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) certified and have received national recognition for their contributions to wildlife habitat conservation. Efforts include providing artificial nesting structures and planting native trees, shrubs, and aquatic plants.
- In 2004, Mirant's Canal generating plant (Sandwich, Massachusetts) became the first power plant in Massachusetts to reduce emissions as part of a new state effort to achieve the nation's toughest air emission standards for steam-electric plants.
- The Potrero Generating Station in San Francisco is among the oldest electrical power facilities in California and located at the site of the first power station run by the company that eventually became Pacific Gas and Electric. It is now shut down.
Controversy
Environmental record
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst identified Mirant as the 63rd-largest corporate producer of Air pollution in the United States, based on 2002 data, with roughly 19 million pounds of toxic chemicals released annually into the air.[9] Major pollutants indicated by the study include sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and chromium compounds.[10]
Chesapeake Climate Action Network blockade of Dickerson Power Plant
On November 10, 2004, a group of Chesapeake Climate Action Network activists, students, farmers, and religious officials held a protest against the coal-fired Dickerson Power Plant in Montgomery County, Maryland. During the protest, six people were arrested for trespassing on private property. The protestors called on the plant's owner, the Mirant Corporation, to stop opposing state and federal legislation against power plant pollution.[11]
Federal Court Cases
Local 369 of the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) recently succeeded in enforcing an arbitration award in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The court determined that Mirant did not have just cause to discharge two workers for viewing pornographic materials on a computer. Federal Judge Douglas P. Woodlock denied Mirant’s motion to vacate the award, and the union’s motion for judgment was granted.[13]
External links
References
- GenOn formation 8-K filing SEC, retrieved 2012-06-15^
- Mirant Spin-Off Southern Company, retrieved 2007-10-06^
- Michael J. de la Merced. Merger of Energy Producers To Form $3 Billion Company New York Times, 2010-04-12