One of the first things that Rick Perry did on assuming the role of Secretary of … the third one, was to draw up a plan for “grid reliability.” According to this plan, reliable plants had to have 90-days of fuel on-site. That meant that solar plants didn’t qualify, because the sun was inconveniently located. And wind-power didn’t qualify before, because they didn’t jar the stuff up. And even natural gas plants don’t qualify, since their fuel arrives by pipeline on demand. Conveniently, the definition that Perry put together was just right to exclude everything except coal plants and nuclear plants.
However, Trump’s own regulators stomped on this plan in January, just because it was poorly thought out and illegal. Since then, power companies have closed even more coal plants and brought even more renewable and natural gas power online. Not even most power companies liked the plan Perry put together because it forced them to keep using more expensive, less environmentally friendly sources that kept them bound to aging, difficult to maintain plants.
Every major U.S. grid operator strongly opposed Perry’s plan, characterizing it as a threat to competitive power markets. Critics of the proposal said it could have let some coal and nuclear plants continue to operate even if they’re not economic to run. That could slow development of gas, wind and solar projects, whose growth depends on aging power plants closing.
But some less major operators had bet the farm on those aging technologies, and Utility Dive reports that one of them has come back to Rick Perry asking that he deliver what he promised.
FirstEnergy Solutions on Thursday asked the U.S. Department of Energy to issue an emergency order to provide cost recovery to coal and nuclear plants in the PJM Interconnection, saying market conditions there are a "threat to energy security and reliability."
What FirstEnergy is asking for would be taking authority used to keep the lights on in a disaster, and using it to boost their bottom line.
FirstEnergy wants the emergency order to remain in place for four years, or "until the Secretary determines that the emergency has ceased to exist because the PJM markets have been fixed to properly compensate these units for the resiliency and reliability benefits that they provide, whichever is later."
Note that there is no “emergency.” At least not in the sense of a natural disaster or some break down of the grid. What FirstEnergy is asking is that Perry and the Department of Energy save them from market forces that are making their 85 coal and nuclear plants uneconomic to operate.
FirstEnergy is pitching the request the same way that Perry pitched his plan — as a move toward “grid security.” They’re attempting to get Perry to take action that would essentially put his plan in place, despite the regulatory ruling that he could not put his plan in place.
Which seems perfectly in line with the actions of Trump’s cabinet.