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Gridcensus

Brownfield & Retired Power Plant Sites in Alabama

21 catalogued brownfield and retired-generation sites in Alabama, listed by former capacity. Each carries an existing utility-scale grid interconnection that a new datacenter load may be able to re-use.

At a glance

Alabama has 21 brownfield and retired-generation sites in GridCensus: 19 retired power plants from EIA-860 and 2 EPA-tracked contaminated or reuse sites. Together they record 8,538 MW of existing or former generating capacity, 9th among 50 states and DC. The largest by capacity is Widows Creek at 1,968.6 MW.

What kinds of former sites are in Alabama?

By former use, the list includes 9 natural gas, 6 coal, 3 biomass, 2 Superfund, 1 hydroelectric. Recorded retirement dates run from September 2001 to January 2023, with 11 retirements in 2015 or later. 18 of 18 sites with a measured distance sit within 2 miles of a transmission substation.

How does Alabama compare with other states?

Alabama ranks 34th of 50 states and DC by number of brownfield and retired-generation sites, out of 2,085 nationally. By recorded capacity (8,538 MW) it ranks 9th, against 289,280 MW across all states. The state also has 3,107 scored datacenter candidate sites, 5 of them classed as brownfield sites, averaging 55 on the 0–100 DC Readiness scale.

Where in Alabama are these sites?

All brownfield and retired plant sites in Alabama

SiteFormer useCapacityRetiredCounty
Widows Creekcoal1,969 MW2015-09-01Jackson
Gorgascoal1,417 MW2019-04-01Walker
Colbertcoal1,350 MW2016-04-01Colbert
E B Harris Electric Generating Plantgas1,230 MW—Autauga
H Allen Franklin Combined Cyclegas688 MW—Lee
Lowman Energy Centercoal538 MW2020-10-01Washington
APC2gas300 MW——
Barrycoal272 MW2015-08-01Mobile
APC1gas270 MW——
APC3gas200 MW——
Gadsdengas138 MW2023-01-01Etowah
U S Alliance Coosa Pinescoal38 MW2019-01-01Talladega
Georgia-Pacific Consr Prods LP-Naheolabiomass31 MW2019-06-01Choctaw
WestRock Demopolis Millbiomass29 MW2012-05-01Marengo
Sloss Industries Corpgas25 MW2021-11-01Jefferson
Georgia-Pacific Brewton Millbiomass13 MW2017-03-01Escambia
USARMY/NASA Redstone Arsenalsuperfund10 MW——
Anniston Army Depotsuperfund7 MW——
Goat Rockhydro6 MW2001-09-01Lee
Crestwood Dothangas5 MW2003-01-01Houston
Yellowhammer Gas Plantgas3 MW2021-01-01MOBILE

Frequently asked questions

How many retired power plants are in Alabama?

GridCensus lists 19 retired power plant sites in Alabama from EIA-860 retirement records. 14 have a recorded retirement date, 11 of them in 2015 or later.

What is the largest retired power plant or brownfield site in Alabama?

Widows Creek in Stevenson is the largest by recorded capacity, at 1,968.6 MW. It is followed by Gorgas (1,416.7 MW) and Colbert (1,350 MW).

Which power plant in Alabama retired most recently?

Gadsden has the latest recorded retirement date in the state, January 2023, with 138 MW of capacity.

Which county in Alabama has the most brownfield and retired plant sites?

Lee County has the most, with 2, followed by Jackson County with 1.

How many EPA brownfield sites in Alabama have completed cleanup?

2 of the 2 EPA-tracked sites listed for Alabama are recorded as cleanup complete.

Looking for a specific record? The directory lists every brownfield site, A to Z.

More on Alabama, and states with similar counts

About this data

Source: EIA-860 retired generating units and EPA RE-Powering America's Land contaminated-site records, as published March 6, 2026. See the methodology for how records are matched, cleaned and scored.

Cite as: GridCensus, “Brownfield and retired power plant sites in Alabama”, https://gridcensus.com/brownfield-sites/alabama (data as of March 6, 2026).

Dataset updated . Screening estimates derived from public data sources.

Go deeper than the public screen

Every site and score for brownfield sites in Alabama is free to browse. Pro adds Watchtower on 25 sites, alerts when new candidate sites, datacenters or interconnection-queue requests appear in your markets, score and capacity history, and CSV export. Enterprise adds team seats, weekly data files for all 147,272 sites, the REST API and an MCP server for AI tools.