Talen, PJM Reach Agreement to Keep 2 GW of Coal, Oil Generation Online for Reliability in Maryland

Power Magazine ^ | Sonal Patel | Sona Patel

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Talen Energy has reached an agreement with PJM Interconnection, the Maryland Public Service Commission, Maryland electric utilities, consumer representatives, and the Sierra Club to extend operations at its 1.3-GW coal-fired Brandon Shores power plant and 774-MW oil-fired H.A. Wagner units until May 31, 2029, under a reliability-must-run (RMR) contract.

If approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the settlement will allow Talen to run the plants well beyond their May 2025 retirement dates and provide the independent power producer with fixed payments of $312/MW per day for Brandon Shores and $137/MW per day for Wagner. The figures include performance incentives of $5 million for Brandon Shores and $2.5 million for H.A. Wagner, the company said.

Wagner, located in Anne Arundel County, comprises Wagner 1, a 133-MWe coal-fired unit built in the 1950s, and it hosts a 13-MW gas-fired combustion turbine, which can serve as a peaking unit. Talen retired Wagner 2, a 136-MW coal-fired unit, in 2020. The two-unit 1.3-GW coal-fired Brandon Shores Generating Station is located outside Baltimore. Unit 1 was completed in 1984, and Unit 2 in 1991.

Talen on Monday said the RMR agreement is “intended to provide the power necessary to maintain grid and transmission reliability in and around the City of Baltimore until necessary transmission upgrades to provide reliable power to the area from other sources are complete.”

Talen had initially sought to retire the two power plants this year, citing economic and environmental constraints. The company formally notified PJM of its intent to deactivate all four Wagner units in October 2023 and had already announced in April 2023 that it would shutter Brandon Shores by mid-2025, pointing to deteriorating market conditions, including declining energy market margins and low-capacity prices, which made continued operation financially unsustainable. The company said also faced growing regulatory constraints.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

A little bit of good power news.

Talen was going to close Brandon Shores due to "deteriorating market conditions, including declining energy market margins and low-capacity prices, which made continued operation financially unsustainable."

I find that hard to believe (actually, it sounds like utter BS). You cannot replace economical coal plants with anything else that would be more economic. Certainly wind and solar will not compete in the Mid Atlantic region. And "low capacity prices"! Has anybody suffered with declining energy prices? (note that a capacity price is not the same as energy price)

The ONLY reason the coal plants are not economic is the stranglehold of ultra-wacko "green" economics, punitive regulations, and eternal federal subsidies. That could change rapidly in the new administration.

Brandon Shores Power Plant: Talen’s 1.3-GW coal-fired plant near Baltimore, Maryland, includes Unit 1 (completed in 1984) and Unit 2 (1991). The company planned to retire the facility by mid-2025 due to regulatory and economic challenges. Courtesy: Talen

[packagingguy]

“They’re trying to kill the children!”

[Cold Heart]

Sierra Club. American hating communist groups have such benign names.

[Owen]

Because of the transition to natgas from coal, largely for cost reasons, there is more coal remaining than natgas.

The natgas situation is getting tight and accelerating the day when Russia’s natgas reserves dominance will assert itself, so moving back to coal has merit.

[fruser1]

PJM is predicting shortfalls in the near term due to the confluence of retirements, low entry of replacements, and demand increase due to data centers and electrification (EVs, nat gas bans).

In spite of the half-good news here, we’re still in a death spiral due to the eco-freaks.

I say half-good because the fundamental regs have not changed. They are just allowing this plant to get paid enough to stay on in spite of the cost of regs, meaning the bills go up for us schmucks.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yep, it’s a short-term reprieve with no real plan on how to get out of the capacity shortfall. That’s the fundamental problem. Losing these Talen plants (old BG&E) is a HUGE blow. PJM is speaking up a little bit, but not enough. They should be screaming bloody murder about the freight train headed down the tracks straight at them.

[traditional2]

The cost being paid for this Capacity and Energy is at LEAST 10X the cost that was the market 10 years ago. You KNOW there was some kind of pay-off to the Enviro-Wackos (aka: the "Sierra Club").

NO QUESTION, the gas supplies and availability are squeezed by Leftist rules on drilling, transportation, and intentional favoritism to the 30% of peak load time available capacity, via TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZED New World Order "Green Energy" scammers.

[Ikeon]

MDE. Maryland dept of envirionment is owned and run by the environmental wackos. Including the Sierra club. Watched plants put 100’s m into clean air and get shut down anyway.

[Bobalu]

[Freee-dame]

40% of Maryland‘s electricity is generated from its only nuclear power plant. Calvert cliffs nuclear power facility has been online since 1975. It keeps electricity costs lower in Maryland. The whole country needs to look at a nuclear power. The 1979 accident at 3 mile Island , in which no one was hurt, led to the USA stopping any new nuclear power for energy production.

Europe relies on quite a bit of nuclear power for electricity. Nuclear power plants are probably much better now than they were 50 years ago.