FirstEnergy has announced that its subsidiary Monongahela Power Company (Mon Power) would retire three coal-fired power plants in West Virginia by September 1, 2012. The decision to close the plants is based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which were recently finalised, and other environmental regulations.
The plants to be shut down are the following: Albright power station (275 MW, 1954), Willow Island power station (213 MW, 1961), and Rivesville power station (75 MW, 1951). The total gross capacity exceeds 660 MW, or about 3% of FirstEnergy's total generation portfolio. Recently, these plants served mostly as peaking facilities.
Additional investments to implement MATS and other environmental rules would make these plants even less likely to be dispatched. As a result, the decision was made to retire these West Virginia plants rather than continue operations. This follows FirstEnergy's announcement last month that its competitive generation subsidiaries would retire six older, coal-fired power plants located in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland by September 1, 2012.