New England’s last coal plants are shutting down
"Batteries will offer little assistance in a deep freeze" is right.
The last two coal plants in New England are scheduled to be shuttered by Granite Shore Power by 2028.
While New England doesn’t use much coal, little else suffices when it is truly necessary. New England’s grid already leans heavily on natural gas, which is delivered “just-in-time” through pipelines. This proves a problem in cold winter days, when the limited natural gas stored in pipelines must be prioritized for home heating.
When that happens, it’s important to have dispatchable plants that can kick on when needed and have some fuel on site. E&E News notes also that “the other [coal facility] typically logs fewer than 20 days in a year, switching on only during the hottest summer swelters or coldest winter periods when power demand in the region spikes.” Seems to me that the coal plants are indispensable for meeting demand during those 20 days each year when they’re needed to keep the lights on for residents.
E&E News reports that Granite Shore Power, “plans to build two large battery storage facilities, a small solar farm and, if all goes well, a port that could eventually serve the offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Maine.”
While batteries have their uses when power is needed in the short term, “[Jim Andrews, CEO of Granite Shore Power] acknowledged that batteries will offer little assistance in a deep freeze.”
New England stands to lose 3,000 megawatts of generating capacity over the next four years — about a tenth of its total capacity. ISO New England, the regional grid operator, assumes in its grid modeling that 4,800 MW of offshore wind capacity will come online by 2032. It also assumes that a large transmission line will be completed to import hydropower electricity from Canada. That’s a lot of assumptions to make for reliability given that “demand will grow 17 percent over the next 10 years.”
With the EPA’s new rule regarding greenhouse gas emissions on power plants, we should expect almost all coal plants to retire rather than retrofit to meet the requirements. The rule requires existing coal plants to capture 90% of carbon emissions by 2032 if they hope to operate beyond 2039. They can also partially reduce their emissions but shut down by 2032. (This is particularly bad news for coal-heavy regions such as the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), of which Minnesota is a part).
It’ll take more than batteries when New England (or Minnesota) need winter power.
This piece was originally published by American Experiment on July 17, 2024. https://www.americanexperiment.org/new-englands-last-coal-plants-are-shutting-down/
I go back to the days of the Great Northeast Blackout. At that time, much power was being imported from Canada to NYC through Buffalo. Only problem was that Canadian power was not in phase with US power, requiring large phase shifting transformers. At some point in the event these transformers failed and added to the falling dominoes. Besides that, now the Canadians have the same playbook as other leftists and are squandering resources on “green” initiatives.
Nicely done, thank you. Some questions. You said that "New England stands to lose 3,000 megawatts of generating capacity over the next four years — about a tenth of its total capacity. ISO New England, the regional grid operator, assumes in its grid modeling that 4,800 MW of offshore wind capacity will come online by 2032."
1. What is the "quality" of the lost capacity, and is there a plan to replace what will be lost before it is shut down? Losing 10 percent of your capacity while your demand is growing sounds like a surefire sign of big problems on the horizon.
2. Is the assumption of 4.8 GW of wind power in a highly contentious environment reasonable? realistic? Given Vineyard's recent faux pax and the agency shutdown of construction does not speak to the ISO meeting that goal. So, what is its contingency? Does it plan to tell its customers to live with the brownouts?