In COVID Crisis, Coal Accounting For Barely More Than 15% Of US Generation During Energy Crash [View all]

[hatrack]

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“Just about everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong for the coal industry,” said Matthew Preston, a coal analyst at the firm Wood Mackenzie. He said coal demand this year is down between 35 and 40 percent from last year, “and last year wasn’t a great year.” Coal has been struggling for many years. Now, there’s a drop in demand because of the economic shutdown (as well as warmer weather).

In the mid-Atlantic power grid, that demand fell by 8 to 9 percent in March. Preston said that right now, coal is more expensive than natural gas, wind or solar in many parts of the country. So when demand slows, coal plants are the first to shut down.

In fact, over three days earlier this month, wind and solar actually produced more electricity than coal in the U.S., the first time that has happened, according to a new research note from the Rhodium Group.

Rhodium found that coal accounted for just 16.4 percent of U.S. electric power from mid-March to mid-April, compared with 22.5 percent for a similar period last year. All of this means that — just as with the oil glut — there’s too much coal sitting around. “We’re seeing coal stockpiles run up to some historically high levels,” said Joe Aldina, a coal industry analyst with S&P Global Platts. He said it’s “actually pushing the physical constraints of the coal fired generation system.”

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https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2020/04/27/the-coal-industry-was-already-struggling-now-its-getting-hammered-by-coronavirus/