Energy Harbor wants to eliminate its carbon dioxide emissions
The owner of one of the few coal-fired power plants in the state plans to shut down or sell its remaining units to the plant five years earlier than it previously announced.
Akron-based Energy Harbor, a former subsidiary of FirstEnergy, said Monday it would sell or decommission the three remaining units at the WH Sammis plant near Stratton, in eastern Ohio, along the river Ohio, in June 2023. Previously, she announced that she would act by 2028. .
It also says it will close a coal-fired plant along the Ohio River in West Virginia as it works to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from its operations.
With these moves, Energy Harbor’s remaining power generation will come from the Davis-Besse and Perry Nuclear Generating Stations in Ohio and the Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania.
“Over the past two years, it has been made clear to us that our customers, communities and capital market partners recognize the value of partnering with Energy Harbor as we help transform clean energy supply,” said John Judge, president and CEO of Energy Harbor. , said in a statement.
Energy Harbor’s ruling on the Sammis plant is the latest in what has been a back-and-forth over whether the plant will stay open.
In 2018, FirstEnergy Solutions, as the company was called at the time, said it would close the plant in 2022. It reversed the decision a year later, just as state lawmakers passed House Bill 6, the legislation that bailed out Ohio’s nuclear power plants by adding charges to the monthly electric bill that consumers pay.
Four other units of the plant closed in 2020.
The legislation did not directly provide assistance to the plant, but Energy Harbor said at the time that the bailout would improve its finances enough to keep the Sammis plant open.
The legislature subsequently repealed the levy.
Energy Harbor is among a number of companies that have announced plans to shut down their last remaining coal-fired power plants in the state.
With a shutdown date set for Sammis, there are only three major coal plants left in the state – Cardinal in Jefferson County, James M. Gavin in Gallia County and Kyger Creek in Gallia County – which have not yet announced their intention to fully shut down.
The Gavin plant, near the Ohio River, is among several coal-fired plants subject to additional regulatory review.
The plant has applied to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency for permission to continue dumping potentially toxic coal ash into an unlined pit until 2023.
On Jan. 11, the EPA released a proposal to deny the facility’s request, along with similar requests from two other coal-fired power plants in the Midwest.
@BizMarkWilliams