Coal’s share of the U.S. electricity-generation mix has fallen from about 40 percent in 2014 to about 22 percent in 2021, undercut by cheap fossil gas and, more recently, by even cheaper renewable energy. But many U.S. utilities still plan to keep some coal plants operating for decades to come, despite multiple analyses that indicate the need to end coal use by 2030 to meet the Biden administration’s goal of halving U.S. carbon emissions by that time.
One big reason utilities may not want to close plants early is that “they might not get full recovery on the asset,” Gimon said. Many utilities in the U.S. and around the world are operating coal plants that haven’t yet earned back the cost to build them.
Utilities that operate in states with vertically integrated energy markets, which include much of the Southeast, West and Midwest, pass those costs on to…