New $685 million power plant in Sherman aims to strengthen Texas grid

SHERMAN, Texas (KXII) - A groundbreaking ceremony marked the start of construction on Rayburn Energy Station 2, a $685 million project that will add 570 megawatts of power to strengthen the Texas grid.

Rayburn Energy Station 2 is a $685 million investment that will add 570 megawatts of power to the system for resiliency and redundancy to create stability with the electric grid, said Shawn Teamann, Sherman mayor.

“One of those moments was February of 2021,” Teamann said, referring to the winter storm that prompted the legislation. “This project that we are standing at today is a recipient of those funds.”

The project is one of the only cooperative recipients awarded funds from a Senate bill that enabled billions of dollars in funding to add resiliency to the electric grid, Teamann said.

The plant will provide extra power during periods when the grid needs additional reliability, said David Naylor, CEO and president of Rayburn Electric Cooperative.

“So those periods of time when the grid needs that extra boost of power, needs that extra reliability kick, if you will, some redundancy, this plant’s going to be able to do that,” Naylor said.

Power generation and jobs

The 570-megawatt plant can serve more than half a million homes on a conservative basis, Naylor said.

The project adds Sherman to a list of about 25 cities in Texas that can generate more than a gigawatt of power.

The construction will create several jobs over the 18-month to two-year process. The existing plant has about 25 employees, and the new facility will add another 10 to 15 full-time employees, Naylor said.

The plant will generate power using natural gas, which Teamann said is one of the cleanest sources for energy generation.

“The byproduct of that is really just water vapor. And so it is a very clean source of energy,” Teamann said.

Black start capability

The facility is a black start site, meaning it can operate without requiring power from elsewhere to start up.

“They will come on first and they do not require power from anywhere else to start their plant back up,” Teamann said. “So we will be among the first across the state to get power restored in the event that there is some catastrophic event.”

If the grid experiences a catastrophic failure, the plants at Rayburn Energy Station 2 will be able to come online and allow other plants in the grid to restore the grid, Naylor said.

The new facility consists of 10 individual peaking units at 57 megawatts each that can come online quickly, Naylor said. This differs from Rayburn Energy Station 1, a combined cycle base load unit built in 2014 and acquired by Rayburn in 2023.

The peaking plant is designed to carry the load on peak demand days and can start power generation on demand, Teamann said. On normal days, the existing plant runs as usual, but on days when peak demand gets high, the new plant can start quickly to help prevent potential power outages.

The plant is expected to go commercial in June 2028, Naylor said.