Close coal and start up solar and storage
Wisconsin utilities We Energies and Alliant argue that retiring coal power plants must be replaced with methane gas generation, but a cleaner, more innovative path is possible. One utility in the Upper Midwest is going down that path.
I recently visited a solar farm and battery storage installation in Minnesota that Xcel Energy is building to replace one of their retired coal plant units. Xcel Energy serves a large portion of southern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. Last year they turned off the 700 MW Sherco generating plant Unit 2 after nearly 50 years of operation. Now, just next door, the Sherco Solar and Battery Project will soon generate electricity from the sun and store some of that energy for a rainy day.
The battery energy storage component of the project truly is groundbreaking– it will be one of the first 100-hour iron air batteries developed by Form Energy. These batteries can provide longer-term electricity storage for multiple days of extreme weather and grid outages (like during winter storms we’ve had in recent years) or periods of low renewable energy generation. While the 100-hour battery installation at Sherco is a relatively small demonstration project (only 10 MW), it will be able to dispatch 1,000 MW-hours of electricity by late 2025, showing how rusting iron, and then reversing the rusting process, can keep the lights on.
Utilities with retiring power plants have a major advantage over solar and wind energy developers within MISO, the grid operator for the Midwest. They can use existing connections to the electricity grid without spending time and money on lengthy studies that other developers are required to do. Many of the new methane power plants proposed by WE Energies and Alliant intend to use utilities’ interconnection rights. They are using their unique position to build what is most profitable for them instead of what is the cheapest electricity for Wisconsinites that also improves air quality, health, and mitigates against climate change.
When I visited the Sherco Solar Plant recently, in the distance I could see the coal plant it is replacing. And up close I got to see where Minnesotans and Wisconsinites will soon be getting electricity generated from the sun, with pollinator-friendly native plants being established beneath the solar panels. A win-win for the climate, air pollution, and soil health. Wisconsin needs more utilities thinking outside the box and using their existing interconnection rights to invest in homegrown solar electricity, not double down on fossil fuels.
