Retirements of U.S. Electrical Producing Capability to Sluggish in 2024

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Operators plan to retire 5.2 gigawatts (GW) of U.S. electrical producing capability in 2024, a 62% lower from final 12 months when 13.5 GW was retired and the least in any 12 months since 2008, in accordance with our newest Preliminary Month-to-month Electrical Generator Stock. Coal and pure gasoline collectively account for 91% of the deliberate capability retirements in america this 12 months.

Coal. After 22.3 GW of U.S. coal-fired electrical producing capability retired over the previous two years, coal retirements will decelerate in 2024. The two.3 GW of coal-fired capability scheduled to retire accounts for 1.3% of the U.S. coal fleet that was in operation as of the tip of 2023. Coal retirements are scheduled to extend once more in 2025 when operators count on to retire 10.9 GW. In 2024, coal retirements will come primarily from older items: the capacity-weighted common age of those retiring items is nearly 54 years, about 10 years older than the weighted common age of working coal items. U.S. coal items are retiring because the nation’s coal fleet ages and as coal-fired mills face competitors from pure gasoline and, more and more, renewables. The biggest coal retirements in 2024 might be Seminole Electrical Cooperative’s Unit 1 (626.0 megawatts [MW]) in Florida and Homer Metropolis Producing Station’s Unit 1 (626.1 MW) in Pennsylvania. The opposite two coal-fired items on the Homer Metropolis Producing Station retired final 12 months.

Pure gasoline. The two.4 GW of scheduled retirements of pure gasoline capability characterize 46% of anticipated U.S. capability retirements in 2024 and 0.5% of presently working U.S. pure gas-fired capability.

Mystic Producing Station, a six-unit, 1,413-MW combined-cycle facility in Massachusetts, will account for 60% of the pure gas-fired capability retirements in 2024. One of many nation’s oldest energy crops, Mystic Producing Station has been offering energy within the Boston space for the reason that Forties. The opposite 5 petroleum- and pure gas-fired items at Mystic have already retired, so with these final unit retirements the complete plant is scheduled to close down when its price of service settlement expires in Could. The opposite 32% of the retiring pure gas-fired capability will come from 16 simple-cycle combustion generators totaling 754.0 MW on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Johnsonville station.

Petroleum. Greater than 450 MW of U.S. petroleum-fired capability is scheduled to retire in 2024. Nearly the entire retiring petroleum capability might be from the TVA’s Allen energy plant. The plant is shutting down its combustion turbine website consisting of 20 outdated combustion turbine items totaling 427 MW. These items provided energy throughout instances of peak demand throughout the TVA energy system. Allen was primarily a coal-fired plant earlier than TVA retired all coal-fired items in 2018, changing the capability with the Allen Mixed Cycle Pure Fuel Plant, which went into operation in Could 2018.

Energy plant homeowners and operators report deliberate capability retirements and deliberate additions to EIA in our annual and month-to-month electrical generator surveys. A earlier At this time in Power article describes the 62.8 GW of producing capability that builders plan to carry on line in 2024.

Principal contributor: Suparna Ray. Information visualization: Suparna Ray, Kristen Tsai. Courtesy of U.S. EIA.