In the US, the economics of coal power generation are at marginal levels, and a large number of coal plants have closed due to cheap renewable energy and the rise of natural gas. The Trump administration has used a number of methods to swim against this economic tide, the simplest of which is to order plants scheduled to close to remain operational.
The Energy Department has used the Federal Power Act and Trump’s executive order declaring an energy emergency to prevent the closure of coal plants across the country. The orders requiring plants to remain open were accompanied by a steady stream of triumphant press releases, showing that the Energy Department was taking steps to ensure complete grid reliability.
The latest of these, issued Monday, relates to a plant in Centralia, Washington, which was planned to be closed last year to convert to natural gas production. A Department of Energy emergency order had kept it running through the winter, but that order was set to expire yesterday. With the new order tomorrow, the plant will remain operational till mid-June. According to the press release, this action was taken “to ensure Americans in the Northwest region of the United States have access to affordable, reliable, and safe electricity.”
In response, the Environmental Defense Fund examined production data for the region served by the TransAlta Centralia Coal Plant, the last remaining coal plant on its section of the grid. According to Energy Information Administration data, coal contributed just 8 megawatt-hours in January and February, about the same amount of energy that the solar panels on my house could produce in eight months. This is consistent with maintaining the plant’s ability to come back online, EDF said.
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