A coal-fired power plant near Swallow, Wyoming is the only one in the country in terms of economic viability, a positive distinction for this plant, but depressing for coal-fired power in general.
Dry Fork Station is the only coal-fired power plant with a generating capacity of 405 megawatts that costs less than building a new wind or solar power plant in a similar community or region. The Energy Innovation think tank today released a new report.
The report joins previous versions from 2019 and 2021, which, taken together, show how the economy of coal power is declining. This year, in 2019, the authors found that more than 70% of coal-fired power plants are more expensive than new wind or solar alternatives. This percentage has now increased to 99%, with only the Wyoming plant being below 100%.
The transition follows the Reducing Inflation Act signed in August, which includes various incentives to reduce the costs of wind and solar energy.
"Coal will be more expensive and renewables will be cheaper, but the IRA is definitely making a big, big difference here," said Michelle Solomon, co-author of Energy Innovation. From the report
Although recent inflation has made all sources of electricity more expensive, the costs of wind and solar power continue to rise relative to other major sources.
But the report's calculations don't mean that coal plant owners are losing money by continuing to operate. In fact, many factories are profitable for a number of reasons, including state regulations that allow owners to pass all costs on to customers and policies that allow companies to "program themselves," which means that factories operate even when there are cheaper alternatives to the grid.
Most importantly, power plant owners could save billions of dollars by replacing most of their coal-fired plants with wind and solar power.
The IRA also includes carbon sequestration incentives, which some power plant owners can use to install retrofits. The report's authors did not consider the upgrade because no factories outside of the pilot project have successfully implemented it, and it is not yet clear whether such upgrades would work or how much they would cost. .
The report did not attempt to quantify the climate and health benefits of coal plant closures.
Coal "fights to stay"
Fossil fuel industry advocates, meanwhile, argue that coal and natural gas-fired power plants have advantages that cannot be fully explained in terms of cost, such as plants where the fuel can be stored on-site. for weeks or months. This contrasts with wind and solar power plants which depend on wind and sun.
But the report's authors say the potential cost savings from coal-fired plant shutdowns are so significant that companies could add wind, solar and similar energy savings to the average afternoon capacity of plants at the coal and natural gas and still save. money
The authors note that most coal-fired power plants are more expensive than wind and solar. The report found that the operating costs of around 80% of coal-fired power plants are at least a third higher than the cost of generating new electricity from wind and solar power.
"Most plants are far from this threshold," said Eric Gimon, principal investigator at Energy Innovation and co-author of the report.
And that's important, because it means the price difference is substantial, because the fundamentals can't be changed based on changes in valuations or changes in subsequent costs.
The report looked at 210 coal-fired power plants in the continental United States and used publicly available data to estimate their costs and compared those numbers to the costs of building and operating wind and solar power plants in the same regions as power plants in the coal.
The findings hold true for Emily Grubert, professor of sustainable energy policy at Notre Dame, who was not involved in the report.
"It's a system that's fighting to keep up," he said of the intertwined economy between coal-fired power plants and coal mining.
One of the main issues when comparing coal and renewables is that coal-fired power plants have to pay for fuel, which includes paying for transportation. Not having to pay for fuel for solar and wind power plants not only means lower costs, but also more predictable costs, giving plant operators a huge advantage as they look forward to decades of operation.
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donate nowThe authors did not compare the cost of building a new coal-fired plant to that of renewables because construction of new coal-fired plants has all but ceased in the United States. As of 2014, the only new 17-megawatt coal-fired system to come online is at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which provides power and heat to the campus.
Developers are responding to financial risks from competition from other energy sources, including renewables and natural gas, and the possibility that the federal government or states will pass laws requiring factories to pay more for their emissions .
"It barely happens."
The Dry Fork station, which was commissioned this year in 2011, was part of the latest wave of new coal-fired power plants. The primary owner of the $1.35 billion plant is Basin Electric Power Cooperative, which sells power to rural power cooperatives in nine Mountain West and Midwest counties.
At the time of its completion, the Dry Fork station was renowned for its high efficiency in terms of the amount of electricity generated relative to the amount of fuel it consumed. Additionally, the plant is located close to the coal mine that supplies the fuel, so there are no fuel transportation costs. These factors combined make the operation of the plant cheaper than other coal-fired plants.
"Dry Fork Station is part of an overall energy strategy that provides affordable, reliable and responsible energy to our members," a spokesperson for the Basin Electric Power Cooperative told Inside Climate News.
But even in terms of efficiency, dry plants are much less efficient than new renewable plants. The report estimates that if Dry Fork's operating costs are $16.64 per megawatt hour, building and operating a new wind farm in the area would cost $16.96 per megawatt hour, a difference of 2 %.
"It's just junk," Solomon said of the spare change.
Renewable energy transmission cost estimates depend on the number of sunny and windy areas near a coal plant and, among other things, the level of tax credits available in different countries.
Other coal-fired plants have similar costs, including renewable plants near switches or at the Prairie State plant in Illinois. This year, the Illinois plant, which was commissioned in 2012, has an operating cost of $20.47 per megawatt hour, about the same as the estimated cost to build and operate of a new wind farm in the state.
But they are part of the foreigners. More often than not, the price difference is so large that customers have to wonder if it makes sense to keep the switch in service, Solomon said.
