EIA Details Impact of Coal-to-Gas Switching
The post EIA Details Impact of Coal-to-Gas Switching appeared first on POWER Magazine.
U.S. utilities have made a significant move away from coal-fired power generation in the past decade, evidenced by a continuing stream of announced coal plant retirements.
That transition has been partly driven by new generation from renewable resources, such as wind and solar power. New data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released August 5, though, shows that a large part of that transition came as generators repurposed those coal plants to run on natural gas, or built new gas-fired plants to replace electricity generated by burning coal.
The EIA on Wednesday said 121 U.S. coal-fired power plants were repurposed to burn other fuels between 2011 and 2019. The agency said 85% of those plants were converted to gas, or replaced by natural gas-fired plants. This coal-to-gas switching was driven not only by more stringent emissions regulations, but also by consistently lower prices for natural gas.
