EXELON GENERATION is threatening to shut down its Mystic Generation Station in mid-2022 unless the operator of the regional power grid offers more money to units that generate electricity reliably and provide regional fuel security.
The Everett-based Mystic station is one of the two largest electricity-generating facilities in New England. It is capable of generating nearly 2,000 megawatts of electricity, which matches the output of the Millstone nuclear plants in Connecticut.
The Mystic station consists of six plants that run on natural gas (1,414 megawatts), one plant that can run on natural gas or oil (576 megawatts), and an eighth plant that runs just on oil (8.6 megawatts).
Exelon, which is based in Chicago, earlier this year tried to withdraw its plants from an auction the regional grid operator uses to secure power commitments for future years, but the grid operator, ISO-New England, rejected the request. In a statement in late February, the ISO said its review of the matter indicated “transmission lines in Greater Boston could be overloaded” if several of the Mystic units were not available in 2021-2022.
A decision by Exelon to close down the Mystic station could not be overridden by the ISO. An ISO spokeswoman said on Monday that the grid operator will conduct a study to determine how Exelon’s planned retirements would affect power system reliability.
The ISO has indicated that it may have to offer plant owners new incentives to remain online, but few specifics have been provided so far.
Ron DeGregorio, the president of Exelon, said in a statement that additional financial incentives are needed. “The ISO-New England market fails to properly reflect the reliability and fuel security benefits that these power plants provide to the region,” he said.
In what Exelon described as a “related move,” the company said it has agreed to purchase the liquefied natural gas terminal in Everett owned by ENGIE North America. Exelon said the purchase was necessary to guarantee access to natural gas for its Mystic plants while they continue to run.
What is going on with Exelon? Exelon seems to be all about closing power plants. In the very recent past Exelon announced has closed or announced closures in Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont…and that’s just what quickly comes to mind. Are we looking at a manufactured electricity generating crisis in our immediate future? Someone really needs to take a look at that 1997 utility restructuring law enacted in Massachusetts to determine if that law is in the public interest. Closing this many power plants over such a short period of time is very concerning.
MassDEP Regulation CMR 7.74 is the most likely cause. MassDEP’s CMR 7.74 mandates an 80% reduction of CO2 from all MA based generation by 2050. Good in one sense, bad in its mechanics. The 21 fossil fueled power plants left in MA can either; 1. generate annually until they reach their maximum allocated emissions and shut down for rest of year, 2. generate and purchase emission compliance payments in order to operate all year, or, 3. do the math and shut down now and sell their allotted compliance payments. Eventually the generators have to close as annual emission compliance becomes more difficult, so why not choose to do so early and at least get paid no to run.
The public has bought into the plan that climate change can be reversed by demanding a switch to renewable energy, mostly from wind and solar. Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, chairman of the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, is pushing one bill after another to accomplish just that.
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/02/senate_committee_advances_ambi.html
Governor Baker has put in motion mandates for the state to bring clean energy from offshore wind farms and Canada. Fossil fuel power plant owners can read the writing on the wall and are signaling their compliance to get out.
The fact that the grid cannot get by without fossil fuel is just one of the unintended consequences of the forced march to a “clean energy” future. If Pacheco and the governor bothered to ask the engineers at ISO-NE, instead of passing law after law telling them what to do, they would understand that what they have legislated so far has failed. instead of doubling down by tripling the mandates for renewable energy, they should be calling for a moratorium like Maine is doing, Among the unintended consequences of the effort to eliminate fossil fuel with clean energy from wind and solar is the early retirement of clean nuclear power. For technical reasons, not understood by Beacon Hill, intermittent power from wind and solar cannot coexist on the grid with clean nuclear or cleaner natural gas. Wind and solar power needs 100% backup firming from very flexible resources that today are only available from dirty power generated by natural gas, and oil. We saw this last winter when the grid ran low on power and had to rely of diesel power plants that had been dormant for years to avoid blackouts.
It is hoped that in time large scale energy storage can be developed to provide firming, now only available from gas and oil. ISO-NE is telling us that we need seasonal energy storage which is unavailable and projected to be prohibitively expensive. Beacon Hill’s call for storage, of a few megawatts here and there, is not going to do much. Grid storage needs to be measured in terawatts to be at all useful. We need to store excess wind and solar power in the Spring and Fall to last through the Summer and Winter.
Beacon Hill needs to follow Maine and call for a moratorium until the path to a clean energy future is clearly understood and defined. Otherwise, the unintended consequences will continue to pile up, and lead to skyrocketing rates, more blackouts, and continued GHG pollution.
This article states Exelon’s president called for “additional financial incentives” and quotes the president: “The ISO-New England market fails to properly reflect the reliability and fuel security benefits that these power plants provide to the region.” So the closures aren’t about environmental regulations. Those closures are all about wanting more money. A couple of years ago Exelon sought some kind of funding from Illinois to keep its nuclear power plants operating. CommonWealth should do a deep dive on Exelon.
Maybe the Commonwealth should take over the operation of these “destined to close” power plants. It would give the Beacon Hill bunch some real world experience of trying to operate in that regulatory world that they created.