The Energy Department embarked on its latest effort to save ailing coal on Tuesday, asking companies to help the government develop small-scale coal plants, a technology that doesn’t currently exist.
“These plants of the future are envisioned to be modular for lower cost, designed using advanced methods, small scale, highly efficient (greater than 40 percent efficiency), and able to load follow to meet the demands of an evolving electricity grid,” the Energy Department said in issuing a “request for information” for industry input on developing smaller coal plants, with a comment deadline of June 8.
“The objective of this RFI is to support DOE’s mission to lead research and technology development that promotes the advancement of coal-fired power plants that provide stable power generation with operational flexibility, high efficiency, and low emissions,” the department said.
The nation’s current coal plants are big and not easily turned off or on.
The Energy Department says the smaller plants could be fired up more quickly than bigger ones, giving them a place on the nation’s energy grid that is increasingly dependent on intermittent wind and solar power. The Trump administration argues that as retiring coal and nuclear plants, which operate around the clock, are replaced by natural gas and renewables, the grid may struggle to provide power quickly during an extreme weather event or other emergency.
Nearly 270 coal-fired power plants have closed or been designated for retirement since 2010, according to the Sierra Club, an environmental group.
Coal’s portion of the electricity generation mix, which was nearly 50 percent a decade ago and is slightly above 30 percent now, is projected to fall below 30 percent this year, according to the Energy Information Administration.
The Trump administration has tried to take a number of actions to save coal and nuclear plants that have been stymied so far.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that called for paying coal plants subsidies to keep them running.
The Energy Department is weighing a widely contested petition from Ohio-based utility FirstEnergy to declare an emergency under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act as a result of the company’s planned nuclear and coal plant closures.
Natural gas, renewable and energy efficiency groups joined forces Tuesday to urge the Energy Department to oppose the “bailout” of coal and nuclear plants, saying such a move would be illegal, since the emergency provision is meant for circumstances that include war, energy shortages, or sudden surges in demand.
Alison Silverstein, an energy consultant and former FERC staffer who helped write an Energy Department study last year on the health of the power grid, said the agency’s latest plan to pursue small-scale coal plants could be a good idea if such technology can produce fewer carbon dioxide emissions.
But she doubts such plants could compete financially with competitors.
“DOE has a long and successful track record at decades-long technology R&D [research and development] culminating in commercially successful technologies (including fracking, gas turbines, wind, and storage) and every one of those started with an idea about how to turn an uneconomic fuel source into a viable product,” Silverstein told the Washington Examiner.
“It could work again with coal and I hope the RFI specifies extraordinarily low air emissions as part of the small size requirement. But it’s hard to see how the high cost of coal extraction and transportation make it competitive with wind, solar, efficiency and natural gas, even with a super-spiffy new power plant technology.”
