Electricity providers beg Biden not to shutter power plants in the name of climate change

Regional electricity providers tasked with keeping America’s lights on warned Tuesday that the Biden administration must delay the retirement of fossil fuel power plants to give renewables time to catch up — or else risk major energy shortfalls.

They said future grid reliability will be jeopardized by too quickly transitioning U.S. electricity usage from coal and natural gas to green alternatives like wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear.

The transmission energy companies, which collectively deliver power from clean and fossil fuel energy sources to tens of millions of homes in dozens of states, told reporters that this summer’s extreme heat conditions underscore the need to slow down premature closures of power plants, particularly those using coal.

“I’m not saying now’s the time to double down [on fossil fuels], I’m just saying now’s the time to slow down on the removal of the [those] assets from our footprint,” said Lanny Nickell, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Southwest Power Pool, a transmission company serving 14 states across the central U.S. from South Dakota to Louisiana.

Two other major regional electricity suppliers — PJM Interconnection, and Tri-State Generation and Transmission — offered similar warnings.

“I would stress the need for a balanced portfolio. You do need wind, you do need solar, but you do need something to back it up,” said Tri-State Chief Operating Officer Barry Ingold. “You need something dispatchable. As we’re taking coal plants offline, our challenge is going to be… can you build a gas plant that bridges that gap?”

Tri-State provides electricity to 42 utilities across the rural West, delivering energy to a million consumers in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Natural gas- and coal-fired power plants generated nearly 60% of America’s energy last year, compared to about 20% from renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower, according to the U.S. Energy Administration. The EIA forecasted last year that renewable generation will more than double by 2050 to 44%.

But a proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency seeks to force natural gas- and coal-fired plants by 2040 to either slash pollution by 90% via carbon capture technology that stores emissions underground or shut down entirely.

The transmission companies also feared goals from some blue states and the Biden administration to achieve a net-zero power sector in the coming decade were ill-advised and unrealistic. Mr. Biden has set a federal target date of 2035 to reach 100% clean electricity while states like Rhode Island, New Jersey and the District of Columbia want to achieve it by 2035 or sooner.

A more achievable target date is closer to 2050, the transmission companies said, for several reasons: a growing energy demand as the U.S. electrifies more appliances and vehicles; a lengthy permitting approval process for new transmission projects to dispatch clean energy; and a lack of storage technology for renewables.

“As long as all options are on the table, certainly, I think those goals for 2050 or 2045 are achievable. We’ve got plenty of time to get there,” Mr. Nickell said. “I’m more worried about the goals being set by 2030.”

Mr. Biden and proponents of the green agenda say transitioning away from fossil fuels in the power sector, which is the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions behind transportation, is vital to combating climate change. The president and others advocate for a faster pace and argue the electric grid will be more secure and affordable if the U.S. can one day only rely on renewables. 

The transmission companies emphasized the need for overhauling the permitting process to slash bureaucratic red tape that can tie up new energy projects for a decade. Congress has been unable to reach an agreement on broad changes that could fast-track the approval process, which the transmission executives said could allow new gas projects to temporarily replace coal — which is far dirtier — until renewables are rapidly scaled up. 

Mr. Nickell said over the last decade there’s been 8,000 megawatts — enough to power roughly 8 million homes for a year — of fossil fuel power that’s been shuttered and 28,000 megawatts of wind capacity added. But far more renewable power capacity is needed to serve the same number of homes, he said, because the usability of fossil fuel power’s capacity is 90% compared to wind only producing 15%-20% of its capacity.

Mr. Nickell said his company, which generates most of its power from wind, would have been forced to throttle electricity in early June if it weren’t for backup fossil fuel power. A “highly unusual, highly unexpected” day that generated just 0.4% of their total potential wind power “created a significant amount of challenge for us.”