By Mark Jaffe, EUCI energy writer
The Trump administration is making a $625 million push to “reinvigorate and expand” the country’s coal industry, but even as it moves ahead another 8.1 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired capacity is set to close in 2025.
The administration’s package includes $350 million for recommissioning and retrofitting old coal-fired plants and $50 million for developing natural gas-coal “dual firing” and “cofiring” systems.
“These funds will help keep our nation’s coal plants operating and will be vital to keeping electricity prices low and the lights on without interruption,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement.
“Coal built the greatest industrial engine the world has ever known, and with President Trump’s leadership, it will help do so again,” Wright said.
Nevertheless, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts 8.1 GW of coal-fired capacity, 4.7% of the total operating at the end of 2024, closing this year.
The largest U.S. coal plant set to retire is the 1,800-megawatt (MW) Intermountain Power Project in Utah. The 38-year-old plant, operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, is being replaced with an 840-MW natural gas combined-cycle unit.
The switch was necessary to meet California’s law mandating utilities to stop using coal-generated electricity. Southern California receives over 90% of the power from the Intermountain project.
The 1,331-MW J.H. Campbell Power Plant in Michigan and the 1,273-MW Brandon Shores plant in Maryland are two other large coal-fired plants expected to be shuttered.
In May, just days before the J.H. Campbell plant was set to close, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued an emergency order requiring the plant’s owner, Consumers Energy, to keep the unit running through August.
DOE said that the plant was needed to ensure grid reliability and on Aug. 20, the department extended the order.
The DOE intervention to keep large fossil-fuel powered plants from retiring could cost ratepayers about $3.1 billion a year by 2028, according to a report by the environmental groups Earthjustice, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club.
The report estimated that the first 38 days the DOE ordered the J.H. Campbell plant to keeping running cost $29 million.
“Power plant owners responding to market price signals, or state utility regulators responsible for ensuring utilities are cost-effectively meeting electricity demand, have determined that these plants are neither economic nor needed to maintain electric reliability,” the report said.
Still, in 2024, coal retirements dropped to 4.0 GW, less than half the 9.8 GW of coal capacity retired in each of the last 10 years.
In July, 18 MW of new coal-fired capacity came online compared to 16 MW of wind, a generation source the Trump administration has taken aim at, cancelling offshore projects and cutting key tax credits.
For the year, however, coal-fired capacity is still negative having lost 40 MW of capacity between January and July. The 18 MW of coal was also dwarfed by the 1.18 GW of solar capacity that came online.
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