The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has turned down TransAlta's proposal to recover nearly $20 million in costs tied to a Department of Energy emergency order that kept its 730-MW coal-fired Centralia plant in Washington from retiring. FERC found the plan's geographic scope too broad, as it would have spread costs to utilities in California and the Southwest Power Pool. Instead, the agency said any revised plan should only charge load-serving entities within the Northwest assessment area identified by NERC as facing elevated winter reliability risks.
FERC also dismissed arguments that TransAlta should not be compensated because the unit produced zero electricity through July under the order. The commission said the emergency order's language about not treating Centralia as a capacity resource does not bar paying for the costs of keeping the plant available. Opponents of the recovery plan included Bonneville Power Administration, CAISO, SPP, and Washington state regulators.
The decision comes amid a broader legal and regulatory fight over DOE's use of section 202(c) emergency orders to delay coal plant retirements. A federal appeals court recently vacated a similar order for a Michigan plant, but the DOE has continued reissuing orders for other units. TransAlta plans to convert Centralia to natural gas by 2028, with power sold to Puget Sound Energy under a 16-year agreement. The Sierra Club estimates the total cost of keeping all units under such orders at about $583 million. This article is based solely on the Utility Dive report; no other sources were provided for comparison.