Contact: Melissa Williams, melissa.williams@sierraclub.org
INDIANAPOLIS — AES, the parent company of AES Indiana (formerly Indianapolis Power & Light) announced today that it will exit all coal operations by 2025. Meanwhile, AES Indiana issued a supplemental statement stating that the future of the two remaining unannounced coal units at its Petersburg Super Polluter coal plant in Southwest Indiana “has not been decided.”
In its statement, AES Indiana noted, “As a result of the 2019 IRP, AES Indiana retired Petersburg Unit 1 in 2021 and shared plans to retire Unit 2 in 2023. The future of two additional coal units in Petersburg has not been decided and is being evaluated now as a part of the 2022 IRP, which will be submitted to Indiana regulators by Nov. 1, 2022.”
In response, Wendy Bredhold, senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Indiana, released the following statement:
“If AES is exiting coal by 2025, one assumes its subsidiary will follow suit, and that its Petersburg Super Polluter coal plant will be retired by 2025. Petersburg is one of the dirtiest coal plants in the country, has continually violated its water and air permits, and broke down repeatedly in the last year, driving up costs to customers when AES had to buy power to fill the gap when its gas plant also failed. Petersburg should have been announced for retirement in AES Indiana’s 2019 long-term energy plan, when major stakeholders, including the City of Indianapolis, asked AES Indiana to replace the coal plant with renewable energy, not more unreliable fossil fuels that are intensifying a climate crisis. Sustained and determined activism by AES customers and those impacted by their coal plants in Indiana and all over the world, including places like Puerto Rico and Chile, has resulted in this progress.”
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.