Fairfield residents may have experienced traffic disruptions through town starting Monday morning this week as Calpine – Freestone Energy Center brings in generators and turbines for their expansion project.
Monday morning, February 17, 2025, a generator was brought through town, travelling up Hwy 75 to Hwy 84, turning right toward FM 488. Once on FM 488, it traveled to FM 2570 to FM 833 and back to FM 488 to finish its route to the Calpine plant located just south of the Richland Chambers Creek Dam.
Residents can expect to have three additional traffic interruptions spread throughout the week as the other pieces are transported to their new location.
The Freestone Energy Center is a natural gas-fired combined-cycle facility located on 506 acres and was the first to be built in the northern part of the Texas Regional Entity market area. It consists of four combustion turbines, four heat recovery steam generators and two steam turbine generators, configured in two largely independent power blocks.
This expansion will bring a new 425 MW peaking facility adjacent to this energy center in light of the Public Utility Commission’s recent adoption of a framework for implementing Performance Credit Mechanism designed to incentivize new energy generation.
(Photo by Natalia V. Marsters)
