Monthly Archives: March 2016

Economics, Not Politics
 Is The Real Problem
 For U.S. Coal-Fired Fleet

Republican rhetoric about the Obama administration’s alleged ‘war on coal’ has been heated, and frequently repeated over the past eight years—but it’s wrong. The only war against coal is being waged by market forces, in the form of plentiful and cheap natural gas, low or stagnant electric demand growth, cleaner and ever-cheaper solar and wind, and finally being forced to pay the bill for years of environmental neglect. And the market forces—those same brutally efficient and unemotional market forces that Republicans so cherish in the abstract—are winning.

The Energy Information Administration reported earlier this month that more than 80 percent of the almost 18,000 megawatts of generating capacity retired in 2015 was coal-fired. At first blush (and certainly for the conspiracy-minded) that sounds implausible. But a closer look at the numbers reveals a much different story.

All told, 94 coal-fired units were retired in 2015, and as a group they were much smaller and older than the rest of the coal fleet. Specifically, EIA says the average age of the units retired in 2015 was 54, compared to 38 years for the plants still in operation. Similarly, the retired plants had an average net summer capacity of 133 MW, compared to 278 MW for the remaining coal fleet.

The EIA graphic below does a great job of visualizing the disparity between the two classes of plants.

EIACoalRetirements copy

Continue reading Economics, Not Politics
 Is The Real Problem
 For U.S. Coal-Fired Fleet

Utility Execs’ New Worry:
 Economic Growth,
 Electricity Sales
 No Longer Linked

If you just glance at the chart below you will dismiss it out of hand—boring, you’ll yell, why are you wasting my time with that graphic, you’ll ask. But take a second, closer look and you’ll see that this graphic tells a compelling story, that of the collapse of the electric utility business model.

Retail sales of electricity in the United States have flat-lined for the past decade: In 2006 total retail sales were 3,669,919 million kilowatt-hours (kwh), in 2015 they were 3,724,525 million kwh. Do the math, that’s an increase of just 54,606 million kwh—or less than 1.5 percent total in 10 years.

Retail_sales_of_electricity,_annual

Continue reading Utility Execs’ New Worry:
 Economic Growth,
 Electricity Sales
 No Longer Linked