Coal

AEP issues RFP for coal to supply power plants over three years

AEP issues RFP for coal to supply power plants over three years
(Photo courtesy Tikilucas, Wikipedia)

American Electric Power is seeking fuel for its coal-fired power generation plants to supply through 2024.

The Ohio-based AEP issued a request for proposal for coal supply to one or more of its generating stations in multiple region.

Overall, the RFP seeks contact on more than 19 million metric tons of coal from the Central Appalachian, Illinois, Powder River and Northern Appalachian basins. These four mining regions produce most of the nation’s coal.

Like many U.S. utilities, AEP has been retiring and replacing a large part of its coal-fired generation portfolio. The company still gets nearly half of its power generated by coal-fired plants.

Those plants include Cardinal, Dolet Hills, Flint Creek, Amos and Turk stations.

Overall, coal-fired generation accounts for about 20 percent of the U.S. resource mix, sometimes more.

New data from the federal Energy Information Administration shows that coal delivery to the electric power sector fell to its lowest level since the EIA first published those statistics 14 years ago. Coal shipments to U.S. electric power sector totaled 428 million short tons last year. 

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The future of coal-fired generation is a key part of the content planned for POWERGEN International, happening Jan. 26-28 in Dallas, Texas. The POWERGEN Call for Speakers is now open — through today, May 17– and seeking content for tracks such as Decarbonization, Digitalization, Energy Storage Breakthroughs, the Future of Electricity, Hydrogen: What’s New, Optimizing Plant Performance, the New Energy Mix (on-site power) and Trends in Conventional Power. Click here to see more and submit a session idea.