US power utility American Electric Power (AEP) has decided to close the three remaining units (1,590 MW) of its Conesville coal-fired power plant in Ohio (United States) by the end of May 2020, two years ahead of schedule.
AEP was considering converting units 5 and 6 to natural gas but instead decided to exit the competitive power generation business in Ohio. Conesville also failed to clear in PJM Interconnection's capacity auction for 2021-2022, while the plant's major supplier Westmoreland Coal declared bankruptcy in October 2018. Operating the coal-fired power plant is no longer seen as economically viable.
The Conesville plant currently has three operating units, (4,5 and 6), which began commercial operation between 1973 and 1978. Unit 4 was already expected to stop in May 2020 but units 5 and 6 were originally set to stop operations in 2022; these two units should be mothballed as early as May 2019. The first three units came online between 1957 and 1962 and they were later decommissioned between 2005 and 2012.
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