Press Release

Reliability Threats Continue Because of Premature Coal Plant Retirements

America’s Power Statement on The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s 2022 Long-Term Reliability Assessment

Washington, D.C. – America’s Power president and CEO Michelle Bloodworth issued the following statement in response to the release of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s 2022 Long-Term Reliability Assessment:

“We commend the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) for issuing its annual Long-Term Reliability Assessment today. Like NERC’s previous assessments, the new assessment continues to warn about the potential for power outages in certain areas of the country because of coal retirements.

“According to our analysis, some 93,000 MW of coal-fired generation have announced plans to retire by 2030, and we expect more coal retirements, especially during 2026-2028, because of EPA regulations. For example, one EPA regulation is projected to cause 23,000 MW of coal retirements by 2025. Therefore, coal retirements are almost certain to be even greater than NERC’s assumption of 88,000 MW of retirements.

“We remain deeply concerned that the grid is being forced to rely on less dependable electricity sources in the future because of coal retirements. We strongly urge the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and grid operators to act as quickly as possible to value all reliability attributes. In addition, we urge utility commissioners to pause coal retirements until grid operators have identified and valued all reliability attributes.” 

 America’s Power is a partnership of industries involved in producing electricity from coal.