It’s been almost two years since the initial closure of Electric Energy Inc., was officially announced and almost 17 months since an official date was given.
That day is here.
After serving the community for almost 70 years, EEI is to close today, Thursday, Sept. 1.
According to Meranda Cohn, Vistra’s senior director of communications and media relations, the plant is on schedule to cease generating electricity this week. Employees will remain working onsite for the next several weeks performing decommissioning activities.
“We continue to move forward with the transformation and repurposing of the Joppa plant site into a renewable energy center that will provide a stable source of property taxes for the community for decades to come,” Cohn said.
The Joppa-based coal-powered plant became fully operational on Aug. 5, 1955, providing half of the power requirements for the Atomic Energy Commission plant west of Paducah.
Vistra Corp. became the owner of EEI in 2018. The same year, the Sierra Club filed a complaint before the Illinois Pollution Control Board concerning allegations of environmental exceedances occurring prior to Vistra’s ownership. In October 2020, under a binding settlement with Sierra Club, Vistra Energy must permanently cease operating coal plants in Ohio and Illinois, including those in Joppa, Edwards and Coffeen, no later than Dec. 31, 2022. In April 2021, the Joppa closing date was announced as Sept. 1, 2022, a revision that was part of the complaint agreement between the company and the Sierra Club.
“Our (settlement) agreement with the Sierra Club is a legally binding agreement to close the Joppa plant due to litigation that was filed with the Illinois Pollution Control Board,” said Brad Watson, Vistra Energy’s director of community affairs, during a June 30 public hearing on the closure of the Joppa plant’s east ash pond.
Around September 2020, Vistra began sharing information on its plans of investing $550 million to repurpose coal plant sites across central and southern Illinois into battery energy storage facilities and/or solar farms. In June, it was announced the EEI site will receive a $40.7 million grant over 10 years as one of the first participants in the state’s Coal-to-Solar Energy Storage Grant Program.
Watson said EEI will be the 12th coal-powered electric plant Vistra has closed in the last five years — three in Texas and nine in downstate Illinois — with all to be retired in 2027.
Just Transition
With the closure of EEI as a coal-powered plant, “Vistra is committed to a just transition for its workers and the community,” Cohn said.
According to the company, Vistra will pay property tax payments in excess of market value for three years after the plant’s closure, based on a percentage of the plant’s 2019 tax bill. Once the plant is closed, Vistra will pay more than $1.1 million from 2023-25 to local taxing entities.
The retirement of the plant is impacting approximately 90 full-time workers.
“The company worked with local union representatives to provide a comprehensive severance and transition package,” Cohn said.
“In addition, we’ve hosted a career fair, partnered with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for a series of informational meetings, brought in outplacement and career transitioning firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas and more.”
About a half dozen employees have accepted new positions within Vistra at other facilities.
Zero-Carbon Energy
The closure of EEI coincides with the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Energy Transition Act by the Illinois General Assembly last September.
The act was the energy omnibus that contained the Coal to Solar & Energy Storage Initiative framework, which is facilitating the transformation of the Joppa plant site into a renewable energy hub to install 37 MW of utility-scale battery storage.
“This innovative program provides a mechanism to reuse the considerable infrastructure at existing plant sites by facilitating the development of zero-emission, utility-scale solar and battery energy storage at retired or to-be-retired coal plant sites,” Cohn said.
“In total, the framework supports an anticipated investment of over $550 million by Vistra to help the state responsibly transition its sources of electricity toward zero-emission generation by developing up to 300 MW of utility-scale solar and 150 MW of battery energy storage facilities. At the Joppa site, specifically, we intend to build a 37-megawatt battery energy storage facility, and we are currently evaluating the potential of solar, as well.”
Since acquiring its Illinois power plant fleet in 2018, Vistra has taken decisive steps to responsibly operate, retire and transform its legacy coal power plant sites. The company committed to retiring all in-state, coal-fueled generation no later than 2027, resulting in a 92% reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions in less than a decade.
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