West Virginia lawmakers and regulators push to protect aging coal plants
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CHARLESTON - Lawmakers, state regulators and utilities are trying to ensure West Virginia's aging coal-fired power plants continue to provide base-load energy into the regional energy grid.
The Joint Committee on Energy and Public Works heard from officials with the Office of Energy, the Public Service Commission and the state's two electric utility companies about West Virginia's ability to provide coal-fired power to the PJM Interconnection, the regional grid that serves 13 states and Washington, D.C.
Nicholas Preservati, deputy secretary of the state Department of Commerce and director of the Office of Energy, said West Virginia is a key leader in the 13-state Governors' Collaborative, which is intervening with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reform PJM governance. Preservati criticized PJM emergency rules that force local coal plants to throttle down due to west-to-east transmission congestion, as well as rapid plant cycling that shortens equipment lifespans.
"We have gone up and met with the White House, we’ve met with DOE (U.S. Department of Energy), we’ve met with every FERC commissioner, and we’ve met with PJM," Preservati said. "We’re working to protect West Virginia’s interests at PJM because there’s a lot of dissatisfaction the way it’s being run."
PJM coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity, dispatching the power it needs for the regional grid on a minute-by-minute basis using the least expensive fuel sources first. While coal is considered base-load energy, it is not always the least expensive.
PJM is primarily using natural gas and nuclear to meet base-load demand before dispatching coal due to the higher costs of operating aging coal-fired plants. According to a 2025 analysis by financial firm Lazard, coal-fired power costs consumers $122 per megawatt hour compared to $78 per megawatt power for natural gas.
Preservati said the state is working with federal partners, such as at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, to upgrade and extend the life of coal-fired energy in West Virginia.
"NETL is going to allow us to work with them to use their computing research, to work with the utilities to not only determine what upgrades need to be made, but to look at every process, start to finish, that affects the coal plant," he said.
FirstEnergy has invested $500 million over the last five years in its two in-state coal-fired power plants (Fort Martin, Harrison), while Appalachian Power has secured over $87 million in federal grants and $116 million in low-interest loans for modernization, including at the Mitchell Power Plant in Marshall County.
"Maintaining and updating our power plants is critical," said David Ellis, the director of quality assurance at the Public Service Commission. "We also have to maintain and update these plants because they’re old. They’re 50 years old ... And it’s not just a question of being competitive. We need our power plants even if they sell nothing into the PJM market. Even if they solely use that power for our own customers."
The PSC is implementing consumer economic dispatch rules required by House Bill 2014, the 2025 law dealing with data centers and microgrids. These rules mandate that utilities maintain plants to run at their lowest possible cost, targeting a 69% capacity factor when economical. Those rules are out for public comment, with a hearing scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Monday, Sept. 28, at the PSC's headquarters in downtown Charleston.
"The commission has said consumer economic dispatch means maintaining each individual power plant based on the engineering of that power plant, based on the limitations of the transmission that it’s connected to, (running) that plant so that it runs at its lowest possible cost," Ellis said. "We’ll be looking at the comments. We’ll probably be putting out some amendments or changes to those proposed rules within the next month or two, and then eventually those will come to you all because they are legislative rules. They will have to come to the Legislature for approval."
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.