“Beautiful, clean coal will be essential to powering America’s reindustrialization and winning the AI race,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier this week. With power demand accelerating, largely driven by artificial intelligence, and coal still accounting for 15% of U.S. generation last year, historical retirement targets for conventional generators are becoming increasingly unrealistic. The administration reinforced its support for coal by allocating $625 million in funding to repower existing facilities and issuing a series of executive orders aimed at preserving baseload generation.
Coal has unexpectedly become the bridge fuel of the energy transition. With developers struggling to build new gas capacity due to rising costs and permitting hurdles, coal plants are increasingly being kept online to maintain reliability. Retirement delays for coal have trended higher than for any other generation type since early 2024 (Figure 1). The Department of Energy’s emergency order to keep the 1.6 GW J.H. Campbell plant in MISO operational and PJM’s reliability-must-run agreement with Talen Energy’s Brunner Island facility highlight coal’s renewed role in grid stability — at least for now.
Still, investors are treading carefully. Coal’s renewed momentum is heavily policy-driven, and a change in administration could quickly unwind current support, leaving recently extended assets exposed to stricter environmental policies and stranded-cost risk.
Research Highlights:
- CPS Adds ProEnergy Plants – Prepping for Rising Power Demand – We analyze how Enverus Intelligence® Research’s valuation of ProEnergy’s gas portfolio compares to CPS Energy’s acquisition price and what the deal indicates about U.S. gas generation sentiment amid rising capital costs.
- Blackstone Strikes Again – Plugging Into PJM’s Load Growth – How does Enverus Intelligence® Research’s valuation of Ardian’s gas portfolio compare to Blackstone’s acquisition price? What does it signal about U.S. gas generation sentiment amid rising power demand?
- Clean Fuels Revalued – Navigating Evolving Policy – This report provides an analysis of project economics and revenue stacks for various clean fuels and our outlook on the sector following recent changes to the 45Z production tax credit, the Renewable Fuel Standard and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
Enverus Intelligence® | Research, Inc. is a subsidiary of Enverus that publishes energy-sector research focused on the oil, natural gas, power and renewable industries. EIR publishes reports including asset and company valuations, resource assessments, technical evaluations, and macro-economic forecasts, and helps make intelligent connections for energy industry participants, service companies and capital providers worldwide. See additional disclosures here.
