FirstEnergy to close or sell two Ohio plants
FirstEnergy Corp. announced on Friday that it will sell and/or close two of its Ohio coal-fired plants – Bay Shore Unit 1 in Oregon, Ohio and W.H. Sammis Plant Units 1-4 in Stratton, Ohio – by 2020 due to performance.
“We have taken a number of steps in recent years to reduce operating costs of our generation fleet,” FirstEnergy Generation President Jim Lash said. “However, continued challenging market conditions have made it increasingly difficult for smaller units like Bay Shore and Sammis Units 1-4 to be competitive. It’s no longer economically viable to operate these facilities.”
FirstEnergy intends to sell or retire Bay Shore Unit 1 by October 2020, and will retire Sammis Units 1-4 by May 2020. Sammis Units 5-7 will remain operational and produce a generating capacity of 1,490 megawatts. The facilities will not be offered into the PJM capacity auction for 2020-2021.
FirstEnergy will take offers from interested buyers. Successful buyers must continue to employ the 78 employees at Bay Shore Unit 1. FirstEnergy does not expect layoffs to take place and will instead transfer the 368 employees at Sammis, and all employees at Bay Shore, should it not be sold, to other FirstEnergy facilities.
PJM Interconnection will conduct an investigation to observe the potential impact of the plants’ closures on energy reliability in the area.
