East Kentucky Power and the state attorney general’s office have taken federal regulators to court over a power plant in Pennsylvania.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy ordered the Eddystone Generating Station near Philadelphia to continue operating past its scheduled retirement.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission then approved a plan to spread the cost out over the 13 states that are part of PJM, a regional grid organization. Those states include Kentucky and one of its largest utilities, East Kentucky Power Cooperative.
The utility and the attorney general say Kentucky customers should not have to bear the cost of keeping the Eddystone plant on the grid. They have petitioned the U.S. Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit to overturn the cost-sharing plan.
Eddystone’s owner, Constellation Energy, says the plant has operated infrequently since last year, but has contributed to grid reliability.
The plant has two units that operate on either oil or natural gas. Constellation says both units most recently operated May 18 and 19.
They also operated during the winter weather of Jan. 26 to 29 and during hot summer weather in June and July 2025.
Constellation spokesman Mark Rodgers said the Eddystone units cost about $10 million to operate during the last six months of 2025, following the Energy Department’s order.
Nick Comer, a spokesman for East Kentucky Power, said the issue is less the cost than the allocation FERC approved. The utility did not contribute to the grid emergency the Energy Department cited in its order to keep the Eddystone plant operating, it has said in court filings.
Comer said the cost allocation method creates the potential for East Kentucky Power customers to bear greater costs in the future.
The region organization, PJM fell 6,800 megawatts short of its reliability requirement in a recent capacity auction for 2028 and 2029. Eddystone units 3 and 4 each have a capacity of 380 megawatts.
PJM is the largest U.S. regional transmission organization, with 67 million customers across 13 states and the District of Columbia.
The organization forecasts an increase in electricity demand of 70 gigawatts by 2038, driven by large-load customers such as data centers.
Meanwhile, 15 gigawatts of generation resources have retired since 2022, mostly coal. Though Trump administration policy has slowed coal retirements, more plants are scheduled to come off the grid in 2028, including some in PJM.
