Retirement is Coming

Deck: 

Preparing for New England’s capacity transition.

Fortnightly Magazine - June 2011
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There is no shortage of opinion—including in these pages—about how much of our nation’s aging coal, oil, and natural gas electric fleet will be retired in the coming years. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) estimates that up to 76 GW of primarily coal- and oil-fired capacity will be retired or derated by 2018, with virtually no region of the country unaffected.1 For New England, NERC’s analysis suggests that up to 4 GW of capacity could face retirement or derating, considering deteriorating market economics and the capital investments required to comply with the combined requirements of forthcoming EPA rules on air emissions, cooling water, and coal ash disposal.2

The proliferation of studies and flurry of activity around retirement aren’t merely exercises in political maneuvering or consulting gone wild; announcements about retiring plants have been emerging steadily over the past year (at least), including in New England.

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