New England’s last two coal-fired power plants are scheduled to close by 2025 and 2028, ending the use of a fossil fuel that has provided electricity to the region for more than 50 years.
The decision to close the Merrimack and Schiller plants, both in New Hampshire, makes New England the second region in the United States, after the Pacific Northwest, to stop burning coal.
Environmentalists have waged a five-year legal battle against the New Hampshire plants, claiming the owner dumped hot water from steam turbines into a nearby river without first cooling it to match the natural temperature.
In an agreement reached Wednesday with the Sierra Club and the Conservative Law Foundation, Granite Shore Power, the owner of the plants, agreed that the Schiller plant will no longer operate after December 31, 2025 and that the Merrimack plant will cease operations at the latest in June 2028.
“This announcement is the culmination of years of perseverance and dedication from so many people in New England,” said Gina McCarthy, former national climate adviser to President Joe Biden and former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Obama administration, now a senior advisor to Bloomberg Philanthropies, which supports efforts to phase out coal.
“I am very proud to live in New England today and to be here,” said Ms.me McCarthy. “Every day, we show the rest of the country that we will secure our clean energy future without compromise. »
Solar parks
In recent years, New Hampshire’s two power plants have operated only intermittently during peak periods.
After their closure, the plants will be converted into solar farms and batteries capable of storing electricity produced by offshore wind turbines along the Atlantic coast, the company said.
“From our first days as owner and operator, we have been very clear that although our plant occasionally remains in service during the hottest days and coldest nights in New England, we were determined to abandon coal in our facilities and look toward a newer, cleaner energy future,” Jim Andrews, CEO of Granite Shore Power, said in a statement.
Coal use has fallen dramatically in the United States as natural gas and renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, have become less expensive. Coal will produce about 17% of U.S. electricity in 2023. Although operators of some coal-fired power plants may delay planned retirements over the next few years due to increased national electricity demand, analysts say the coal industry is in decline.
The dirtiest fossil fuel, coal accounted for 59% of electricity-related carbon emissions in 2021, although it generated less than a quarter of the electricity generated in the United States this year. that year, according to the EPA.
Competing with electricity
In addition to the lawsuits and the awareness campaign, climate advocates have used another strategy to get coal plants closed: forcing them to compete in the electricity market.
The Conservation Law Foundation, a New England legal advocacy group focused on environmental issues, has lobbied New Hampshire electricity regulators and lawmakers for years to have the company own the coal-fired power plants and utilities that distribute electricity be divided into separate entities. Indeed, a single structure would allow them to increase prices to cover production and transport costs.
But the foundation bet that once separated from the transportation business, the power plant owner would stop burning coal in favor of other, less expensive energy sources to compete with much cheaper renewable energy.
Coal-fired power plants have survived “on the backs of taxpayers, despite their inefficiency,” said Tom Irwin, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation. “They are effectively subsidized. »
“Our goal was to expose these plants to market forces,” Mr. Irwin said.
The foundation’s efforts were successful in 2018, when new owner Granite Shore Power purchased the power plants with the intention of transforming the coal generators into less polluting operations.
This article was originally published in the New York Times.
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