J.H. Campbell power plant supplies power to a million residents, but is scheduled to close next week
The Department of Energy is invoking emergency powers to keep a decades-old coal-fired power plant in Michigan online, an effort designed to avoid power outages and grid reliability issues as summer, a peak power demand season, fast approaches, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
In an emergency order signed late Friday afternoon, Energy Secretary Chris Wright directed the region’s grid operator to coordinate with the Michigan-based Consumers Energy, ensuring the utility company’s J.H. Campbell power plant remains available for operation. The West Olive, Mich., plant was slated to be permanently retired on May 31 as part of Consumers Energy’s plans to eliminate its coal fleet and slash carbon emissions by 90 percent.
The J.H. Campbell power plant, though, has a generation capacity of approximately 1,450 megawatts, enough to supply power to a million Michigan residents.
Friday’s order signals that the Department of Energy is concerned the plant’s closure would have devastating impacts on Michigan’s grid and potentially lead to a significant power shortfall. Those concerns are in line with what experts and grid operators have repeatedly expressed—according to the nation’s top grid watchdog, the Midwest is at “high risk” of shortfalls due in large part to the planned retirements of fossil-fuel-fired power plants.
“Today’s emergency order ensures that Michiganders and the greater Midwest region do not lose critical power generation capability as summer begins and electricity demand regularly reach high levels,” Wright said in a statement provided to the Free Beacon. “This administration will not sit back and allow dangerous energy subtraction policies threaten the resiliency of our grid and raise electricity prices on American families.”
“With President Trump’s leadership, the Energy Department is hard at work securing the American people access to affordable, reliable, and secure energy that powers their lives regardless of whether the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining,” he added.
Driven by state policies heavily incentivizing or mandating green energy investment, coal-fired power generation has dwindled over the last two decades nationwide, federal data show. In Michigan, coal plants generated 21 percent of total electricity in 2024, down from the 66 percent coal generated in 2009.
Overall, utility companies nationwide have announced coal-fired plant closures that would take 9,356 megawatts of power off the grid, even as U.S. power demand is projected to spike in the coming years, according to a report published by the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis.
“Coal plants are already being phased out precisely because they impose too many hidden costs on our communities—higher utility rates, lost economic productivity, increased healthcare bills, and severe water and air pollution that is costly to control and clean up,” Bryan Smigielski, a Michigan campaign organizer for the eco-activist group Sierra Club, said in April.
Wright’s action, though, illustrates how the Trump administration is undaunted by existing climate goals that seek to rapidly shut down fossil fuel sources and replace them with green energy alternatives.
That contrasts with the Biden Energy Department’s approach, which enthusiastically encouraged utility companies to pursue a rapid green energy transition. In fact, Biden energy secretary Jennifer Granholm in January offered a $5.2 billion loan to Consumers Energy to help the company build more solar, wind, and battery storage, and replace fossil fuel infrastructure.
Wright’s order Friday invoked emergency powers conferred on the energy secretary under the Federal Power Act. Those powers are rarely invoked—Wright has turned to them once before, while Granholm used them just 11 times.
J.H. Campbell power plant first opened in 1962. It expanded in 1967 and again in 1980.
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