Coal

EIA: Increase in coal-fired power draws down power plant stockpiles

EIA: Increase in coal-fired power draws down power plant stockpiles

By Rod Walton, Power Engineering and POWERGEN Content Director

Coal-fired power’s positive early 2021 upswing, however temporary, has been sustained enough to negatively impact its on-site supply.

Higher gas prices, winter plant outages and other factors have led to a rise in coal-fired power generation, according to reports. The U.S. Energy Information Administration noted that the nation increased coal-fired generation jumped 16 percent in the final months of 2020 and rose again early this year.

“Rising natural gas prices in late 2020 and early 2021 made coal-fired electricity generation more competitive,” the EIA release read.

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This rapid increase in coal-fired electricity consumption has impacted stockpiles at U.S. power plants, according to the EIA this week. The drawdown totaled nearly 16 million tons in February, the largest monthly coal inventory decrease in about 10 years (July 2011).

An earlier report indicated that coal-fired accounted for nearly 170 MWh of net generation in January and February, or basically 25 percent of the U.S. utility-scale total. It was also close to 30 percent higher than the same period in 2020.

The U.S., like many developed nations, is retiring coal-fired power plants at a rapid pace, due to the lower emissions and economic competitiveness of gas and renewables. The newest coal power plant to come online was AEP’s Turk station in 2012 (pictured).

Dozens of power plants suffered outages in the southern U.S. due to a massive and lingering winter storm in February. In Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere in the southwest, below-zero temperatures shut down numerous plants including wind turbines and natural gas wells and pipelines feeding gas-fired plants.

Coal-fired and nuclear, both of which have on-site fuel supply, also suffered some outages but also stepped up to provide a greater than normal share of the generation during that frigid weather, according to reports.

ERCOT reported that some 52 GW of power plant capacity was offline during the worst of Winter Storm Uri in February. Much of those outages included gas-fired power and wind turbine capacity.

In the Southwest Power Pool which covers much of the midwest and plains states, coal-fired power stepped to deliver the most capacity during the worst load shedding periods. In fact, SPP records show that coal delivered 41 percent of the generation mix during the SPP’s load shedding events.