On January 26, the Sierra Club released a new report, The Dirty Truth About Utility Climate Pledges, that examines the long-term plans of the 50 US utility companies that remain most invested in coal and fossil gas generation. Sierra Club analysts found that many utilities are not retiring their coal plants fast enough, not building enough clean energy to replace their fossil fuel generation, and continuing to build expensive, polluting gas plants. To distract from these weak energy transition plans utilities are greenwashing, announcing nonbinding commitments to reach “net-zero” by 2050 without taking serious near-term actions.
To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), utilities need to cut emissions 80 percent by 2030. We can’t reduce emissions across the rest of the economy without a clean energy grid. Right now utilities are holding us back when they could be leading us into a clean energy future.
Each utility gets a score based on their plans to retire coal by 2030, build clean energy by 2030, and to stop building new fossil gas plants. The average score is 20/100, and half the utilities get below 17.5, which is an F.
In Michigan, DTE and Consumers Energy got D and C, respectively. Of the 50 utilities examined, DTE has more coal plants without a 2030 or earlier retirement date than all but eight others. DTE is planning to retire 40 percent of its coal fleet, but is building a massive new fossil gas plant, the Blue Water Energy Center, that directly contradicts its 2050 net-zero commitment and will leave their customers paying for stranded fossil fuel assets for decades to come. They also are dragging their feet when it comes to retiring the Belle River plant in 2030 and their Monroe coal plant, one of the largest and dirtiest in the country, until 2040. DTE is making progress on wind energy, but it is stuck in the Stone Age when it comes to solar. DTE needs to get serious about retiring its coal fleet, moving beyond fossil gas, and truly committing to a clean energy future.
Consumers Energy is a step ahead of DTE and should be commended for its commitment to build 6,000 megawatts (MW) of solar, 450 MW of storage, retire a majority of their coal plants, and to aggressively invest in energy efficiency on its path to net zero by 2040. If Consumers retired their J.H. Campbell plant -- the last remaining coal plant in their fleet -- by 2030 and didn’t build a new fossil gas plant, it would bump them up from a C to an A and it would be one of the utilities leading the country on clean energy! Consumers Energy has an opportunity to lead on clean energy by moving up its transition off coal from 2040 to 2030 and ensuring a just transition for the workers and communities connected to the plants.
While Consumers Energy is on the cusp, neither of the Michigan utility companies is doing enough. They should follow the lead of our neighbors at Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), which gets an A grade. NIPSCO plans to retire all its coal plants by 2028 without any new gas investments -- a plan that will save customers an estimated $4 billion over 20 years. By 2028, NIPSCO projects that renewable sources will provide 65 percent of its power. Consumers Energy’s current plan puts them over a decade behind NIPSCO, and DTE is even further behind.
You can view the full report here and look at the data here.