Former energy regulators denounce Trump bid to boost coal

• 7 years ago (2017-10-24)
• David Flin

Coal 301 North America 1027

---

Eight former US Federal energy regulators, including five former commission chairs, oppose the plan put forward by the Trump Administration to bolster coal-fired power plants, saying that the plan will raise energy prices and disrupt electricity markets. They describe the plan as “a significant step backwards.”

The plan aims to reverse a stream of retirements of coal-fired plants, which have lost market share to gas and renewable energy. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is considering the plan, and is due to decide by mid-December.

A letter signed by eight former energy commission members said: “Subsidising resources such as coal-fired plants so they do not retire would fundamentally distort markets and inevitably raise prices to customers.”

The American Public Power Association (APPA) also urged FERC to reject the plan, saying that the plan would “impose significant costs on customers without any justification.”

The plan is to compensate owners that maintain a 90-day fuel supplies. The exact cost of the plan has not been determined. Critics have said that resilience in the power network will be little affected by this, as the main cause of outages and issues lie in the transmission and distribution network, rather than in generation capacity. “It’s solving a problem that doesn’t exist, and ignoring a problem that does,” said an expert from the APPA.