coal

The UK has gone a week without using electricity from coal-fired generation, according to the National Grid Electricity System Operator (NGESO), which oversees the power network in England, Wales, and Scotland. Government officials said it’s the first time the UK has gone without coal in a week-long period since 1882, when a coal-fired plant opened […]

Duke Energy this week said it has a definitive agreement to sell a minority interest in part of its commercial renewable energy portfolio owned and operated by its affiliate, Duke Energy Renewables, to the John Hancock Infrastructure Fund and John Hancock Life Insurance Company. Duke in an April 24 release said the interest is valued […]

Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) on April 24 said an updated analysis of its operations suggests the company could lower costs for customers if it accelerates the retirement of four coal-fired units in Wyoming. Gary Hoogeveen, president and CEO of RMP, which is part of Pacificorp, told state and local officials the company has not made […]

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) on April 24 rejected Vectren’s proposal to build an 850-MW natural gas-fired power plant to replace two coal-burning units at its A.B. Brown Generating Station, along with another coal unit at a nearby plant. The commission said it based its decision on the potential financial risk to ratepayers who they said […]

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 […]

Financing has reportedly been secured for a 1,600-MW coal-fired power plant in India’s eastern state of Jharkhand. Qatar’s Gulf Times newspaper reported April 6 that Power Finance Corp., a state-run lender in India, and its subsidiary REC approved a $1.5 billion loan for the project. The report said the new plant would be funded through loans […]

The Netherlands Orders Early Closure of Coal Plants. The Dutch government on March 8 told Swedish power producer Vattenfall to stop using coal at the 650-MW Hemweg-8 hard coal-fired unit in Amsterdam by the

After a Navajo tribal council on March 21 voted 11–9 to block acquisition of the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) and Peabody Energy’s Kayenta coal mine, the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) announced it would drop its bid to keep the 2.3-GW coal-fired plant near Page, Arizona, open.  NTEC, a company wholly owned by the Navajo […]

A report from an independent market monitor for PJM Interconnection shows that natural gas-fired power generation topped coal-fired output in PJM in 2018, the first time that gas has topped coal in the history of the largest U.S. grid operator. The “2018 State of the Market” report from Monitoring Analytics LLC, which includes Volume 1 […]

Westmoreland Coal Co., the nation’s largest independent coal producer, announced March 15 that it has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will operate as a new, privately held company. The company, headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, near Denver, said its assets, including three mines in Montana, are now owned and operated by Westmoreland Mining LLC, a […]

The chief executive of Vistra Energy Corp. last week said coal is not likely to regain market share in the U.S. power market. Curtis Morgan, in a panel discussion March 14 at the CERAWeek event in Houston, Texas, said “coal is on its way out. More and more plants are being retired.” It’s not the […]

A Wyoming bill designed to keep coal-fired power plants operating in the state was signed into law by the state’s governor last week, one of several developments worldwide that impacted the power generation landscape in early March. Also in the U.S., the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) defended its hiring of a contractor that led the […]

An estimated 91% of U.S. coal power plants that submitted groundwater monitoring data as required by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) 2015 Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) rule have unsafe levels of one or more contaminants, a collaborative analysis of the monitoring data by several environmental groups suggests.  The March 4 report is significant because power […]

Several developments worldwide impacted the power generation landscape in the past week, including more news about the closure of a coal-fired power plant in Alabama, the restart of a geothermal facility in Hawaii, and construction of a biomass-fueled power plant in Japan. In addition, a company said it plans a $150 million investment in three […]

The New York-based hedge fund aiming to take over New Mexico’s San Juan Generating Station (SJGS), targeted for closure by state lawmakers, wants to refit the 46-year-old, coal-fired plant to use carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. Acme Equities LLC said last week that retrofitting the 847-MW plant with CCS technology would cut carbon emissions […]

Eight years after Germany decided it would halt nuclear power production by 2022, the country that relied on lignite and hard coal for 38% of its generated power in 2018 will phase out coal by 2038 or earlier

America’s energy mix is undergoing a period of rapid change. The way we generate electricity in this country looks dramatically different than it did just a decade ago, as wind and solar have matured and

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on February 28 said nuclear power and the use of clean coal technology are the way to combat climate change and reduce emissions from the energy sector. Perry, speaking at a joint press conference in Washington, D.C., with Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said, “We believe […]

Multinational power and gas giant ENGIE, which embarked on an aggressive transition toward zero-carbon three years ago, saw tempered revenue growth over 2018, owing in part to its disposal of thermal generation businesses in the UK and Poland, and the 1-GW Loy Yang B coal-fired power plant in Australia. ENGIE CEO Isabelle Kocher, who outlined […]

A private New York-based real estate investment company that focuses on North American energy projects has reached an agreement with officials in Farmington, New Mexico, to keep the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station open beyond 2022. The city is part-owner of the 847-MW plant, and the other owners—which include Tucson Electric Power, Los Alamos County, […]

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 […]

An Alabama power plant that has operated for more than a century will close in April, with Alabama Power saying that the cost to comply with government regulations on the handling of coal ash and wastewater no longer make the plant economically viable. Jim Heilbron, Alabama Power’s senior vice president and senior production officer, on […]

A subsidiary of MDU Resources Group on February 19 said it plans to close three of its coal-fired units at power plants in Montana and North Dakota. Montana-Dakota Utilities said it would partly replace the lost generation with a new simple-cycle gas-fired unit at the North Dakota site. The company on Tuesday said a biannual […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is holding a board meeting today, during which the fate of the corporate agency’s Bull Run and Paradise Unit 3 coal power plants could be decided. Permanent closure of the facilities is strongly being considered. The stakes are high, according to Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R). In a Jan. 4 […]

Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO), which is phasing out coal-fired power as part of its “Your Energy, Your Future” plan announced late last year, on Feb. 1 said it will develop three new wind farm projects in the state that will add about 800 MW of renewable power generation capacity to its portfolio. The […]

Coal power plants today must find ways to operate economically if they are to survive. Every area of cost reduction must be investigated. On the maintenance side, time savings must be sought—to reduce

The threat to power grid resilience and reliability due to the continued retirement of coal-fired power plants has generated calls for immediate action. A severe weather event such as the “bomb cyclone” or

China’s power sector reforms represent perhaps the world’s largest industrial reform program, with important consequences on both domestic and global levels. In 2015, Erdaoqiao, a settlement in southwest

The Colstrip Power Plant, a four-unit, 2,094-MW coal-fired station located about 100 miles east of Billings, Montana, could see its coal supply contract nullified as a result of Westmoreland Coal Co.’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Westmoreland operates the 25,000-acre Rosebud coal mine, among others. Rosebud is adjacent to the Colstrip plant and supplies almost all […]