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Tri-State Moves to Retire Rifle Combined Cycle Power Plant

April 9, 2022

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a wholesale power supply cooperative with 45 members in four states—Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming—announced its intentions to retire the Rifle Station, an 85-MW combined cycle facility in Rifle, Colorado.

The announcement was made on April 5 in conjunction with a filing with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). If approved, the plant would be closed “on or about Oct. 6, 2022,” Tri-State said.

The Rifle plant runs infrequently, according to the cooperative, because “sufficient and lower-cost resources” are available to serve member power requirements. The station reportedly would need “significant investments” to continue operating.

“The decision to retire Rifle Station comes as we transition to cleaner resources and reduce our wholesale rates,” Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said in a statement. “We appreciate our Rifle employees’ commitment and service through the years, and will be working with them to ease the impact of this transition.”

In January, Tri-State reached an agreement with more than two dozen parties on Phase I of its 2020 Electric Resource Plan (ERP), which was before the CPUC at the time.…

Georgia Power Plans to Retire All Coal Units by 2035

February 2, 2022

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Georgia Power plans to shutter most of its coal fleet by 2028 and completely exit coal-fired power by 2035, according to the utility’s latest integrated resource plan (IRP) filed with state regulators on Jan. 31.

The Southern Co. subsidiary on Monday said it would make more investments in natural gas-fired generation, along with renewable energy, to make up for the lost coal-fired electricity output. The utility also plans to have two new reactors online at its Plant Vogtle nuclear power site, one by the end of this year and the other by mid-2023, that will add more than 2 GW of generation capacity to the company’s fleet.

Georgia Power CEO Chris Womack on Monday said environmental concerns and the current economic landscape of power generation factored into the company’s decisions. The utility files a new IRP with the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) every three years. Its previous IRP was approved in July 2019. Hearings will be held over the next few months to discuss the utility’s plan, with a vote by the PSC expected this summer.…

Exelon Makes Plans to Retire Byron and Dresden Nuclear Plants in 2021

August 28, 2020

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The post Exelon Makes Plans to Retire Byron and Dresden Nuclear Plants in 2021 appeared first on POWER Magazine.

In a stunning announcement, Exelon Generation, which operates the largest U.S. fleet of nuclear plants—21 reactors at 12 facilities in Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania—said it will retire the Byron and Dresden generating stations next fall for economic reasons.

“Although we know in our heads that shutting down the uneconomic Illinois plants is necessary to preserve even more jobs elsewhere, our hearts ache today for the thousands of talented women and men that have served Illinois families for more than a generation and will lose their jobs because of poorly conceived energy policies,” Christopher Crane, president and CEO of Exelon, said in a statement. “But we are only about a year away from shutdown and we need to give our people, the host communities, and regulators time to prepare.”

Massive Clean Energy Generation

The Dresden Generating Station (Figure 1) has two operating boiling water reactors that combine for a total net generating capacity of 1,845 MW.…

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.…

PJM: More Than 3,600 MW Will Retire in 2018

April 5, 2018

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Data from regional transmission organization (RTO) PJM Interconnection shows about 630 MW of power generation will be taken offline in the grid operator’s territory in April, with more than 3,600 MW scheduled to be retired this year, according to the organization’s website. This month’s deactivations are scheduled to begin April 16.

Last week, Ohio power company FirstEnergy said its competitive arm would close four uneconomic nuclear units in PJM with generation capacity of 4 GW by year-end 2021. Then over the weekend, FirstEnergy’s coal and nuclear generation divisions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

FirstEnergy Solutions (FES), FirstEnergy’s power plant subsidiary, on March 29 wrote a letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry, asking Perry to “find that an emergency condition exists” in PJM, and wanting the grid operator to compensate coal and nuclear plants in the RTO for their “fuel security and diversity” benefits—akin to the outline of the DOE’s “Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule” proffered last fall that directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to require that independent system operators (ISOs) and RTOs “establish just and reasonable rates for wholesale electricity sales” for power plants that show “reliability and resiliency attributes.”…

CPUC Backs PG&E Plan to Retire Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant

January 12, 2018

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California regulators have approved Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E’s) application to retire the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant by year-end 2025, ending a protracted battle over the generating station that pitted local economic interests against environmentalists and other opponents of nuclear power.

The state Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on January 11 voted unanimously to accept PG&E’s request to decommission the two reactors at the plant near Avila Beach when operating licenses for the units expire in November 2024 and August 2025, respectively. The 2,256-MW plant is the lone remaining operating nuclear facility in California.

The CPUC also authorized PG&E to recover from ratepayers $ 241.2 million in costs associated with the retirement: $ 211.3 million to keep employees until the plant in closed; $ 11.3 million to retrain displaced workers; and $ 18.6 million for operating license renewal costs.

CPUC President Michael Picker, the commissioner assigned to today’s proceeding, said “Diablo Canyon has been a source of reliable and clean electricity, and employment, in San Luis Obispo [County] for many years now.…