GenOn to close three coal-fired units in Maryland, USA

• 3 years ago (2020-05-22)
• David Flin

Coal 274 North America 998

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GenOn has announced that it will retire units 1, 2 and 3 of its Dickerson Generating Station in Maryland, USA due to: “Unfavourable economic conditions and increased costs associated with environmental compliance.” These have been operating for about 60 years. GenOn said that: “Deactivation of the coal-fired units is subject to a 90-day reliability review period, after which the company will initiate a deactivation process and a step plan reduction in the workforce at the Dickerson site.”

PJM is the regional transmission organisation (RTO) that oversees the movement of wholesale electricity in Maryland, 12 other states, and the District of Columbia. The PJM Interconnection website shows the units’ requested deactivation date as August 13. PJM lists nearly 6GW of total generation capacity in its territory as scheduled for closure in the next three years, with about 92 per cent of that being coal-fired capacity.

The three coal-fired units at Dickerson have a combined capacity of 540MW. They came online in 1959, 1960, and 1962 respectively.