CenterPoint Energy Announces Costly Intention to Backtrack on Coal Retirements, Keeping Expensive Culley Plant Online Past 2027

EVANSVILLE, Indiana – Today, CenterPoint Energy announced an intention to delay plans to retire Unit 3 of its F.B. Culley Generating Station, backtracking on their commitment to be entirely coal-free by 2027. In previous CenterPoint plans, the utility wrote that “Coal plants have not been able to consistently compete on short term marginal price with renewable and gas energy” and that the plants, being old and outdated, were not designed to frequently cycle on and off, resulting in “increased maintenance costs and more frequent outages.”

Unit 3 of the Culley power plant has continued to have reliability issues and power outages, requiring costly upkeep and maintenance for CenterPoint that was then passed onto customers. Extending the life of the Culley plant poses more threats to reliability and affordability for customers.

Although the lowest cost resource plans in this study include retiring Culley Unit 3, CenterPoint did not even study a retirement prior to 2032.

In response, Nicole Chandler, Southwest Indiana Beyond Coal Campaign Organizer, released the following statement:

“The Culley coal plant is outdated, expensive, and unreliable. There’s no reason for CenterPoint to try to extend the life of a 50-year-old coal plant that continues to have power outages and costs even more to upkeep and maintain, while CenterPoint customers have been saddled with some of the highest utility bills in Indiana for years now.

“Instead of prioritizing solar and wind that’s more affordable and reliable for customers, the Trump Administration and Indiana legislators have continued to double down on expensive, polluting, and unreliable coal that costs more for all of us to keep our lights on and heat our homes. We can’t afford to keep throwing lifelines to coal. CenterPoint should stick to the promise they made to their customers by retiring coal at Culley and transitioning to clean energy, not backtrack and leave us with higher energy bills for years to come.”

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