Power grid operators are planning to retire 5.2 GW of power generation capacity this year, which adds up to a 62% fall from last year, when 13.5 GW worth of capacity went offline. This is the biggest slowdown in power plant retirements since 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
Also, all of the planned retirements are fossil-fired thermal facilities, with no nuclear power retirements, according to the EIA’s most recent Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory.
The past two years saw a total of 22.3 GW in coal-fired capacity retiring. This year, the 2.3 GW of coal-fired capacity slated for retirement adds up to 1.3% of the country’s coal fleet in operation as of the end of 2023.
However, the EIA reports that coal retirements will pick up again in 2025, when 10.9 GW in coal capacity will be shuttered.
Most of 2024’s retirements will come from aging coal-fired units. Weighted by capacity, the average age of these units is almost 54 years. This represents a loss of 1.3% of the coal-fired fleet’s capacity.
“The largest coal retirements in 2024 will be Seminole Electric Cooperative’s Unit 1 (626.0 megawatts [MW]) in Florida and Homer City Generating Station’s Unit 1 (626.1 MW) in Pennsylvania. The other two coal-fired units at the Homer City Generating Station retired last year,” according to the EIA.
Nearly half (46%) of anticipated capacity retirements will come from natural gas-fired capacity. This represents 0.5% of the gas-fired fleet’s capacity.
One of the country’s oldest power plants, Mystic Generating Station, a six-unit, 1,413-MW combined-cycle facility in Massachusetts, will account for 60% of the natural gas-fired capacity retirements in 2024.
The other 32% of the retiring natural gas-fired capacity will come from 16 simple-cycle combustion turbines totaling 754.0 MW at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Johnsonville station.
