A 63-year-old coal-fired power plant was scheduled to permanently close its doors in Michigan on June 1. So was an oil- and gas-powered plant that was built in the 1960s in Pennsylvania.
But at the last minute, the Trump administration ordered both to stay open. The orders came as it pursues a far-reaching plan to boost fossil fuels, including coal, by declaring a national “energy emergency.”
The grid operators in Michigan and Pennsylvania said they hadn’t asked for the orders and hadn’t planned on using the plants this summer.
The costs to keep the plants open, which could total tens of millions of dollars, are expected to fall on consumers. Experts have said there’s little evidence of a national energy emergency, and 15 states have sued to challenge President Trump’s declaration, which was issued the day he took office.
The emergency orders, which came last month, surprised the companies that operate the plants, and they are now scrambling to delay some workers’ retirements and reverse nearly complete plans to shutter their facilities. In Michigan, the plant operator raced to buy enough coal to power operations.
The episode marks a highly unusual use of the Energy Department’s emergency powers under the Federal Power Act. In the past, the department has typically issued emergency orders at the request of regional grid operators to stabilize the power supply during extreme weather events and blackouts.
Dan Scripps, chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission, said he estimated that the 90-day order to keep the coal plant open would cost ratepayers tens of millions of dollars.
“What was surprising about this order is that nobody was asking for it,” he said. “The grid operator wasn’t asking for this plant to be kept online. The utility that owns and operates the plant wasn’t asking for the plant to be kept online, the state wasn’t asking for the plant to be kept online.”
Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general, a Democrat, said she was “certainly considering” challenging the order affecting the coal plant in her state.
“We think this is par for the course with the Trump administration,” Ms. Nessel said. “They’re abusing emergency authorities and really manufacturing an emergency that doesn’t exist, in a way that’s really unprecedented.”
Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization, also plans to challenge the orders, according to Tyson Slocum, the group’s energy program director.
In a statement, Ben Dietderich, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, said the department under Mr. Trump was “ensuring Americans have access to all forms of reliable energy, including coal” and that the administration was committed to ensuring access to “reliable, affordable, and secure energy that isn’t dependent on whether the sun shines or the wind blows.”
The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Consumers Energy, which runs the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in Michigan, learned about the emergency order on the Friday evening before Memorial Day, just before the announcement was made public, the company’s spokesman Brian Wheeler said. In a statement, Consumers Energy said it planned to comply.
The plant was just one week away from closing. The order prompted a rush to replenish the giant coal pile that feeds the plant, which had dwindled ahead of the planned closure. Coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels in terms of planet-warming pollution.
A week later, near Philadelphia, the oil- and gas-powered Eddystone plant was one day away from closing when it received similar news. In order to keep the affected units available, Constellation Energy, the facility’s parent company, is “currently focused on securing the staff and performing the maintenance necessary,” a spokesman said.
In its official order, the Energy Department cited projections showing potential summertime electricity generation shortfalls as the basis for the emergency action. Electricity demand is typically higher during the summer when temperatures rise and people use air-conditioning. Overall electricity demand is projected to increase because of data center construction and the adoption of electric vehicles.
All told, 108 plants with a combined capacity of 31.5 gigawatts are set to be retired by the end of Mr. Trump’s term. That list includes 25 coal plants with a combined capacity of 18.2 gigawatts. One gigawatt is roughly enough to power the city of San Francisco.
In an April executive order, Mr. Trump directed the Energy Department to develop a process for using emergency powers to prevent coal plants from shutting down. It’s not clear whether such a process informed the Michigan order.
Mr. Trump attempted something similar during his first term, but the idea faced fierce opposition from grid operators, power companies and consumers, and the White House eventually backed down.
The April order was one in a wave of executive actions aimed at reviving the coal industry by slashing regulations and opening more land for mining, among other things. Coal use in the United States has been declining for more than a decade, and coal plants now produce less than a fifth of the nation’s power.
Despite Mr. Trump’s vocal support of coal during his first administration, the period saw more coal capacity retired than the Biden era did. Research has shown that it costs more to operate most coal plants than it would to build wind and solar power replacements.
Thirty power plants with a combined capacity of 12.2 gigawatts are scheduled to retire just this year. Of those facilities, 10 are coal plants with a combined capacity of 7.7 gigawatts. Another 12 plants set to retire this year are powered by natural gas or oil.
These facilities are generally being replaced with renewables, but grid operators have raised concerns that new sources of energy are not coming online fast enough to meet supply shortfalls left by retiring plants.
Companies that generate power typically work with grid operators, often years in advance, to ensure that a planned retirement will not increase the risk of blackouts or other power failures.
Grid operators have broad power to reverse or delay planned retirements if they forecast an electricity generation shortfall. Because of electricity reliability concerns, PJM Interconnection, a grid operator affected by the Energy Department’s emergency orders in May, separately called on two power plants that burn oil and coal to stay open four years past their retirement dates this year.
Because the Michigan and Pennsylvania plants were set to close at the end of May, keeping these plants open will involve spending money on maintenance, staff and supplies, and these additional costs are expected to be borne by consumers through higher bills.
In Michigan, Consumers Energy rushed to buy more coal. The plant uses 15,000 tons of coal per day bought from Wyoming and Montana. And then there were other costs: Employees who had planned to retire or transfer were suddenly needed for at least another three months.
A spokesman for the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which operates the grid in Michigan, said that it expected to have sufficient capacity to serve projected summer demand. However, extreme weather and “overall tighter conditions” may force it to use emergency procedures, like asking people to conserve energy or buying power from other grids, according to the operator.
In Pennsylvania, PJM Interconnection issued a statement welcoming the emergency order. The operator found that it had adequate reserves for the summer but may run into trouble in an extreme scenario.
The Energy Department’s orders keep the power plants open for 90 days, the maximum allowable under the Federal Power Act. Under the law, the federal government can temporarily exercise controls over the electricity system during emergencies, and orders can be extended.
The Energy Department has issued several dozen emergency orders since 1935. These orders have typically come in response to acute weather emergencies, like extreme heat, hurricanes, wildfires and extreme cold.
In May, the Trump administration issued three such orders: Two kept fossil fuel power plants open past their retirement dates, and a third added more fossil fuel generation to Puerto Rico’s ailing grid.