PV Magazine April 1, 2019 John Weaver
Blood is in the water, and coal is the chum.
The strangely-titled bill has been filed in Illinois, with an aim to transition and repurpose coal plants currently at risk of closure to solar+storage facilities. Vistra Energy, which owns both coal plants in this list and solar+storage facilities elsewhere, is pushing the legislation.
On March 26, 2019, Illinois State Representative Luis Arroyo filed an amendment to House Bill 2713, the Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Act. The legislation aims to create a financial structure to keep at-risk coal plants online through 2024, while funding a build-out of solar+storage, energy efficiency, and transmission to replace the lost capacity.
Just last year, a study sponsored by NRDC and Sierra Club finds that old coal plants can be retired and safely replaced by solar and other resources. The study was written specifically to counter a push by Vistra Energy to gain subsidies for its old plants.
Vistra Energy and its subsidiaries own 5.5 GW of coal resources within the region noted in the legislation (MISO Zone 4), which represents 40% of the summer capacity within that region. The company is seemingly a (the?) major backer, as noted by their website and press releases supporting the document.
More:
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/04/01/the-illinois-coal-for-solar-and-energy-storage-act-is-real/
