Annual US coal-fired electricity generation to increase

• 2 years ago (2021-10-19)
• David Flin

Coal 275 North America 998

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The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has said that it expects a 22 per cent increase in coal-fired generation in 2021 over 2020. This will be the first annual increase in coal-fired generation in the USA since 2014.

This increase has been the result in the increase and the instability of natural gas prices recently, with the delivered cost of natural gas to US power plants being more than double the cost in 2020.

The decline in US electricity demand in 2020, combined with record low natural gas prices, led to a sharp reduction in the capacity factor of coal-fired generators to 40 per cent. This year’s higher natural gas prices have increased the average coal capacity factor to around 51 per cent.

The EIA predicts that this increase in US coal-fired generation will not continue. The electric power sector has retired about 30 per cent of its generating capacity at coal plants since 2010, and no new coal-fired capacity has gone online since 2013. It forecasts that in 2022, US coal-fired generation will decline by about 5 per cent.