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Ohio Lawmakers Announce Plan to Subsidize Nuclear Plants

April 15, 2019

Ohio lawmakers on April 12 announced a plan to provide financial support to the state’s two nuclear power plants by adding a surcharge to customers’ electric bills. The bill’s supporters said it also would generate as much as $ 300 million annually for clean power generation in Ohio, though the measure calls for abolishing mandates for renewable energy.

House Speaker Larry Householder (R), leader of the state’s Republican-controlled House that is backing the bill, said the proposal—called the Ohio Clean Air Program (OCAP) —would do more than save the nuclear plants. About half the money raised by the surcharge would go to Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo and the Perry plant near Cleveland.

The nuclear plants are scheduled to close by 2021 unless operator FirstEnergy Solutions (FES) can find a buyer for the plants or financial relief to keep them open. FES sought bankruptcy protection in March 2018, just after the company notified regional transmission organization (RTO) PJM Interconnection that it would close four uneconomic nuclear units—a total of 4 GW, including the two Ohio plants—in the RTO’s footprint.…

New Gas-Fired Plants Come Online in Michigan

April 3, 2019

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Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp. (UMERC) placed two new natural gas-fired generating stations into commercial operation on March 31, part of the company’s plan to reshape its generation fleet as it seeks to “balance reliability and customer cost with environmental stewardship.”

UMERC, a subsidiary of WEC Energy Group, also retired the coal-fired 430-MW Presque Isle Power Plant on Sunday. The company in a news release said, “Plans for the future use of the retired coal plant site will be developed as the company continues to evaluate potential uses for the property.”

“The new generating stations are good for our customers, good for business and good for electric reliability throughout the U.P.,” said Kevin Fletcher, president and CEO of WEC Energy Group, in a news release. “Closure of the Presque Isle Power Plant also helps achieve our goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent, well ahead of our 2030 target.”

The new F.D. Kuester Generating Station, in Negaunee Township near Marquette, and the A.J.…

APS Will Add 850 MW of Battery Storage to Solar Plants

February 23, 2019

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Arizona’s largest utility wants to support its renewable power portfolio by adding as much as 850 MW of battery storage capacity to its solar power plants by 2025.

Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) made the announcement February 21. Don Brandt, the utility’s chairman and CEO, in a statement said, “Arizona is already a national leader in solar energy. The challenge is, no one has figured out how to stop the sun from setting at night. As storage technology improves and declines in cost, we will increasingly be able to store the power of the sun cost-effectively to deliver when our customers need it.”

The plan includes installing batteries at existing solar facilities, and at future sites. APS would not talk about the cost of the program, citing confidentiality agreements, but said it would build at least 100 MW of new solar capacity by 2025. Analysts have said the utility currently generates about 14% of its power from renewable sources.

The U.S.…

Two Harriet Monroe Poems About Power Plants

February 15, 2019

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Harriet Monroe, the founder and longtime editor of Poetry magazine, was the author of a large body of poems that captured the essence of urban industrial modernity. Her 1914 book, You and I ( Macmillan Company, New York), contains two poems about power generation.

The first, “The Turbine,” is an engineer’s ode to his turbine. The second, “A Power-Plant,” references Edison’s Fisk Street power plant in Chicago—the plant that housed GE’s first (5-MW) steam turbine generator unit. The 1903-opened plant was permanently closed in 2012.

THE TURBINE

To W.S.M.

Look at her—there she sits upon her throne
As ladylike and quiet as a nun!
But if you cross her—whew! her thunderbolts
Will shake the earth ! She’s proud as any
queen,
The beauty—knows her royal business too,
To light the world, and does it night by night
When her gay lord, the sun, gives up his job.
I am her slave; I wake and watch and run
From dark till dawn beside her.…

Report: 10% of U.S. Coal Mined in 1H2018 Went to Plants Scheduled to Retire

September 8, 2018

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More than 10% of the coal mined from eight U.S. regions in the first half of 2018 was sent to coal plants scheduled for retirement between this year and 2032, according to a report from S&P Global Market Intelligence. The trend is another troubling sign for the struggling coal industry.

The analysis released September 7 comes two weeks after the Trump administration announced changes to emissions regulations in an effort to allow coal-fired plants to run longer. The administration has made helping the coal industry a priority, citing coal generation’s importance to national security.

The report also said that more than 6% of the coal mined in the United States in 2017 was delivered to power plants that are scheduled for closure over the next decade. The information comes from an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis of coal production and fuel delivery data.

S&P said just more than 330 million tons of coal was produced by U.S. basins in the first six months of this year, and at least 33.6 million tons went to plants that are scheduled to be shuttered by 2032.…

Experts: Coal Plants Must Adapt to New Energy Landscape

August 25, 2018

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The Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule announced August 21 calls for coal-fired power plants to meet state-designed performance standards, most notably focused on increases in heat rate and overall efficiency for individual generating stations.

Energy experts speaking at the MEGA Symposium in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 22 agreed it’s a goal worth pursuing. They also said it will be difficult to achieve due to the evolving nature of U.S. power generation.

The rise of natural gas, which today accounts for the largest percentage of the nation’s electricity production, along with the addition of renewable sources such as wind and solar power to the grid, has lessened the amount of coal-fired generation across the country. It has decreased coal’s capacity factor—the average power generated by a particular energy source, divided by the rated peak power of that source—to just above 50%, behind natural gas, and well below the 73% capacity factor for coal as recently as 2008, according to the U.S.…