Luminant Texas Sandow 4 coal unit shut for leak

HOUSTON, March 13 (Reuters) - Luminant planned to shut the 545-megawatt Unit 4 at the Sandow coal-fired power station in Texas on Thursday to fix a boiler tube leak, the company told Texas regulators in a report.

The company did not say when the unit would return to service but electricity traders guessed the unit would be repaired in a few days.

The Sandow station, which entered service in 1981, is located near Rockdale in Milam County about 130 miles (210 km) northwest of Houston.

Luminant is also building a 600-MW lignite coal Unit 5 at Sandow. The company expects the unit to enter service in 2009. The new unit will replace units retired by aluminum company Alcoa Inc (AA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) at the end of 2006.

Luminant also said it would install selective catalytic reduction systems (SCR) on Unit 4 to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

One MW powers about 500 homes in Texas.

Luminant is a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corp of Dallas, the former TXU Corp.

The privately held company owns and operates more than 18,000 MW of generating capacity.

A group of investors including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co [KKR.UL], TPG [TPG.UL] and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners lead Energy Future Holdings.

Energy Future Holdings has three business units: TXU Energy, a competitive electricity retailer; Luminant, a competitive power generation business; and Oncor, a regulated power distribution and transmission business. (Reporting by Eileen O'Grady; editing by Jim Marshall)