Alliant plans 2024 retirement for Columbia coal plant, Wisconsin’s 2nd-largest

Alliant Energy announced plans on Tuesday to retire its Columbia County coal-fired plant by 2024, the second-largest such operation in Wisconsin.

The 1,100-megawatt Columbia County Energy Center is Alliant’s last coal-fired plant in Wisconsin. The utility’s decision to close the plant could save ratepayers the $250 million that would be needed to keep the plant operating. It would also move Alliant closer to its goal of eliminating its reliance on coal by 2040.

“The closure of Columbia is truly a historic moment as we stop burning coal in our Wisconsin operations and fully turn our attention to generating cleaner energy using renewable resources, such as solar, battery storage and high efficiency gas,” said David de Leon, president of Alliant Energy‘s Wisconsin energy company, in a statement. “While we are pleased to reach agreement with the co-owners on this retirement date for the facility, we will not be hasty in the final years of operation. We will take care of our employees and provide career assistance to those who are interested while tending to the community we so proudly serve.”

The Columbia plant is the latest in a string of coal plants scheduled this past year for retirement as more Wisconsin utilities move to replace fossil fuel with clean energy.

We Energies announced its intention last year to retire 1,800 megawatts of fossil-fuel generation in the next five years by closing part of its coal plant in Oak Creek. The utility’s plan calls for shutting down the older, southern part of the coal plant, and adding 1,500 megawatts of clean-energy generation, storage and 300 megawatts of natural-gas generation.

We Energies, meanwhile, would still operate its Elm Road Generating Station, the state’s largest coal plant.

Alliant said last spring that it would close its Edgewater coal plant in Sheboygan by 2022. That closing combined with the utility’s decision to close the Columbia plant, is part of Alliant’s Clean Energy Blueprint, a plan to rely more on clean sources of energy and less on fossil fuels. The utility serves about 500,000 electric customers, and 250,000 natural gas customers, in Wisconsin.

Alliant owns the Columbia Coal plant with Wisconsin Public Service and Madison Gas and Electric.

“This retirement is the next step in our plan to build a bright, sustainable future as we invest in renewable energy projects in Wisconsin and reduce emissions by 70% by 2030,” said Brendan Conway, a spokesman for Wisconsin Public Service’s parent company, WEC Energy Group.

Alliant announced parts of its blueprint in May: plans to spend $900 million on utility-scale solar projects as part of an initiative to acquire 1,000 megawatts of solar by 2023.

The Wisconsin John Muir Chapter of the Sierra Club praised Alliant’s plan to retire its coal-fired plant. The organization last year produced a report finding that failing to close the Edgewater and Columbia plants by 2030 would cost ratepayers some $461 million.

“By acting now to move away from coal to clean energy, Alliant Energy is putting words into action at a critical time,” said Elizabeth Katt Reinders, deputy director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “Alliant Energy’s Blueprint shows how comprehensive resource planning can deliver hundreds of millions of dollars of avoided costs to customers.” Follow @natebeck9