Keeping Colorado’s coal plants projected to be costly for ratepayers
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Clean air advocates are pushing back against the Trump administration’s move to force utility companies to keep operating coal-fired power plants.
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency rejected Colorado’s regional haze plan, which called for retiring a number of plants to reduce air pollution. Michael Hiatt, the deputy managing attorney with Earthjustice, said keeping those units online will lead to substantially higher energy bills for ratepayers.
He pointed to Grid Strategies’ cost projections for Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to keep just one plant, Craig Unit 1, online for the additional three months recently mandated by the U.S. Department of Energy.
"It’s going to cost Tri-State and its members about $20 million dollars," said Haitt. "If Tri-State has to keep that unit operating through the rest of this year, it could be looking at increased costs of $85 to $150 million."
The EPA says keeping coal plants operating is necessary to deliver affordable and reliable energy. The agency also determined that Colorado’s entire regional haze plan is out of compliance with the Clean Air Act, after operators of the Ray Nixon plant in Colorado Springs said that they no longer consent to closure.
The EPA’s actions are in sync with campaign promises made by President Donald Trump to revive the coal industry, remove environmental protections, and abandon efforts to transition to clean energy sources like wind and solar.
Hiatt said continuing to burn coal doesn’t guarantee grid reliability.
Comanche Unit 3 in Pueblo unexpectedly went offline last summer and isn’t expected back before next summer. He added that just before the feds ordered Craig Unit 1 to stay online, that unit also had an outage and went offline.
"Propping up uneconomic coal plants, propping up the coal industry – while simultaneously taking efforts to stymie wind development, solar development," said Hiatt, "that’s going to impair grid reliability."
Hiatt said Colorado's plan would also improve public health by putting limits on industrial air pollution. Between 1999 and 2020, air pollution from coal-fired power plants killed nearly half a million Americans.
"Colorado’s regional haze plan delivers, if it’s approved, significant pollution reduction," said Hiatt. "Nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants, to the Suncor refinery, from cement plants in Colorado and other industrial sources."
