Electric
Revitalizing history with new technology
The City completes the first public power plant, named the Downtown Power Plant, in 1914. Throughout its history, GRU continually has made additions and upgrades to better serve our customers. The first and second steam turbines were added in 1921 and 1930. A third steam turbine followed in 1933 and another generator was added in 1947. In 1965, eight units were operating along with three gas turbines, and the Downtown Power Plant was renamed the John R. Kelly Generating Station after the first director of Utilities for Gainesville.
In 2001, GRU unveiled the newly renovated and upgraded Kelly Plant. Public charettes were held to gain community backing for installing new generating capacity downtown, along with campus renovations to improve the appearance of downtown Gainesville. Our new unit is a 110-megawatt natural gas-fired Combined Cycle Unit 1 (CC1), which provides five times the energy at one half the emissions of older gas-fired units.
