A report from the Trump administration’s coal council casts a pair of 70-year-old coal plants as vital to the grid, though they actually lose money for electricity customers.
In a report last week supporting coal generation, the National Coal Council says the Ohio Valley Electric Corp. plants in Madison, Indiana, and Cheshire, Ohio, are efficient and economic.
“Opponents of coal regularly describe the coal fleet as ‘aging,’ but the age of a coal power plant does not affect its ability to continue operating for decades to come,” the report reads.
However, reporting last year by West Virginia Public Broadcasting and Appalachia Midsouth Newsroom found the plants cost customers of Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities $167 million from 2018 to 2024.
They also cost Appalachian Power customers in West Virginia and Virginia $328 million during that seven-year period. Appalachian Power’s parent company, American Electric Power, owns the largest stake in the Ohio Valley Electric Corp., or OVEC.
Elisa Owen, Kentucky senior organizer for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, said the plants are not generating electricity at the lowest cost.
“So the fact that they are keeping those plants online are driving up ratepayer costs,” she said. “If you are a ratepayer, do you want to pay for the most expensive generation going besides nuclear, or do you want to pay a cheaper price?”
The Ohio plant received a $33 million grant last month from the U.S. Department of Energy. The funds will improve electrical infrastructure, emissions controls, control systems and mechanical equipment at the Kyger Creek plant.
That plant, and its Indiana doppelganger, Clifty Creek, were built in 1955 to power uranium enrichment by the federal government to counter the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union.
“With proper reinvestment, coal power plants can continue to operate efficiently and economically far beyond their initial planned life,” the coal council’s report reads.
AEP, LG&E and KU and other owners of the OVEC plants are under an agreement to take power from them through 2040.
Other states have cut ties to the OVEC plants. Michigan regulators ruled in 2024 that Indiana Michigan Power customers should not have to pay for their losses over cheaper alternatives.
Ohio lawmakers last year repealed a scandal-tainted law that bailed out the coal plants with a surcharge on customer bills.
The bribery scandal around House Bill 6 resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of the former Republican speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives. The former head of the state public utility commission died by suicide while awaiting trial.
Against the tide
The Trump administration has taken numerous steps to bolster coal generation, which has been in decline for more than a decade. Two decades ago, it was the grid’s dominant fuel.
Competition from cheaper natural gas and more recently, renewables and battery storage, has pushed coal below 20% of the nation’s electricity needs.
In May, solar alone surpassed coal generation nationwide. Globally, renewables overtook coal last year.
The National Coal Council includes executives from utilities, coal companies and railroads.
Joe Craft, president and CEO of Alliance Resource Partners and a prominent Republican political donor in Kentucky, is a member, as is Sam McKown, president and executive director of the Kentucky Coal Association.
Don Gulley, president and CEO of Big Rivers Electric Corp., which operates in Western Kentucky, is also on the council.
Bill Fehrman, president, chairman and CEO of American Electric Power is a member. AEP is the parent company of Kentucky Power, which operates in 20 Eastern Kentucky counties.
Fehrman was the highest-paid CEO of an investor-owned utility last year, with compensation totaling more than $36 million.
LG&E and KU is a financial supporter of WEKU.
