Connecticut’s last remaining coal power plant, Bridgeport Harbor Station, will be shuttered by 2021 and replaced with a natural gas facility, according to the plant’s owners.
The closure of the Bridgeport plant — a 47-year-old structure owned by PSEG, a New Jersey-based energy provider — comes as coal use in Connecticut, and the state’s metro regions, is rendered an artifact.
Coal companies in the region have seen better days, producing nearly 18 percent of New England’s power in 2000. But by 2014, thanks in large part to an increase in environmental regulations, that number had tanked to just 5 percent, according to New England’s power grid operator, ISO-New England.
The last three coal stations in New England — Brayton Point in Massachusetts, and the Merrimack and Schiller facilities in New Hampshire — continue to inch along, slogging their way through the region’s regulatory minefield.
“This is a true win for Bridgeport — not only adding new clean energy to the grid, but creating jobs, tax revenue and general economic activity within the region,” Richard P. Lopriore, the head of PSEG Fossil, noted in a press statement.
The Bridgeport station’s very existence has filled environmentalists and Greenpeace activists with angst, leading to demonstrations and protests of all varieties. In 2011, for instance, Greenpeace protesters scampered atop the coal plant’s massive smokestacks and affixed a 40-foot banner to the coal elevator reading, “Shut It Down Quit Coal.”
“This is a huge win for the city of Bridgeport and one of the largest private investments ever made in our city,” Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim told The Hartford Courant. “The new plant will result in jobs and tax-base generation, adding more than $5 million in additional revenue per year to the city.”
An increase in natural gas pipelines are raising the hackles of environmental groups as well, with green activists arguing the pipelines are an expensive boondaggle that will only increase the region’s reliance on carbon fuels.
Energy industry officials, however, say the uptick in natural gas means cleaner power and lower prices for consumers.
Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, is fully on board with the planned natural gas plant.
“Today’s announcement to convert the PSEG plant to natural gas is incredibly positive news,” Malloy noted. “Our state continues to show that we can meet our energy needs while decreasing our carbon footprint,” the governor added.
The move to close the Bridgeport Harbor Station comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this week to put the skids to Obama’s new climate rules, called the Clean Power Plan (CPP).
The Court argued the EPA-administered plans must be put on hold until the CPP can navigate through a cavalcade of lawsuits.
The halting of the so-called CPP resulted in a stock market bump for the coal industry, as shares of coal producer CONSOL Energy surged 9 percent to $8.21 Wednesday.
Bridgeport’s new natural gas plant will be constructed next year at the Harbor Station site.
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