A federal grant will help Kentucky Power customers save about a dollar a month on a cooling tower project in West Virginia.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $51 million to replace a failing concrete cooling tower at the Mitchell coal plant.
The plant is jointly owned by Kentucky Power and Wheeling Power. Both are seeking approval from regulators in Kentucky and West Virginia to proceed with the $191 million project.
Nicole Coon, a regulatory consultant for parent company American Electric Power, told regulators in written testimony that the project will cost Kentucky Power residential customers $3.64 a month.
That’s $1.14, or about 24% less than they would have paid without the federal award, she told the Kentucky Public Service Commission.
A Sierra Club witness testified to the Kentucky commission last month that Mitchell should be retired and replaced with a “cleaner, more efficient, more flexible resource alternative.”
A formal hearing is scheduled in Frankfort on July 8.
Mitchell was one of 13 coal plants nationwide to receive $500 million last week from the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump has taken numerous steps since last year to boost coal generation.
However, last month marked the first time that solar alone generated more electricity than coal. Solar produced almost 13% of U.S. electricity, while coal produced 12%.
Kentucky Power parent AEP’s CEO, Bill Fehrman, was compensated $36 million in 2025. That made him the highest-paid CEO of an investor owned utility in the country.
Kentucky Power serves roughly 162,000 customers in 20 eastern Kentucky counties.
In February, the Kentucky PSC approved a smaller rate increase than the one the company sought. Customer rates will increase by 6% this year and 1% next year.
The average residential customer will pay about $11 more a month.
When it approved the rate increase, the PSC also ordered an independent audit of Kentucky Power's operations and management.
In December, the commission approved Kentucky Power’s continued ownership stake in Mitchell beyond 2028. That raised customer bills by about $2 a month.
The 55-year-old plant, south of Moundsville, West Virginia, has a capacity of about 1,500 megawatts.
According to Sierra Club testimony, Mitchell operated at a 34% capacity factor in 2025. In 2016, the plant operated at a 60% capacity factor.
Sierra Club witness Lucy Metz testified continued investment in Mitchell was not in the best interest of electricity customers.
She said the cost of maintaining the plant would only increase in the years to come. Metz said continuing coal generation exposed the company to future environmental compliance costs.
At the time of the scheduled retirement of Mitchell in 2040, Metz noted, the replacement cooling tower would be only 12 years old.
