"The DOE says the Schahfer plant is key for reliability, but repairs mean it’ll be offline for much of 2026. The grid is set to be just fine without it this summer."
"The Trump administration has spent the last year demanding that old, inefficient coal plants stay online long past their retirement dates. But one of those plants in Indiana hasn’t operated in months and won’t be able to until costly repairs are completed — undermining federal officials’ claims that their mandates will make energy more affordable and are needed to avoid imminent blackouts.
The Trump administration first ordered Indiana’s R.M. Schahfer coal plant to continue running in December, just a week before its scheduled closure date and after regulators had already determined that the polluting plant was not needed to keep the region’s lights on. That 90-day emergency must-run order was reupped on March 23.
Yet the coal plant has been offline for repairs since the end of February and is not expected to start running again until this fall, facility owner Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) told regional grid operators at their May 19 hearing on summer electricity reliability. The utility added that even without that energy, it is well positioned to meet power demand this summer, in large part thanks to new wind, solar, and batteries.
In other words, “the coal-fired units couldn’t produce electricity for an emergency even if one existed, which it doesn’t,” Sameer Doshi, a senior attorney for the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice, said in a statement. Earthjustice is asking a federal appeals court to overturn the administration’s must-run orders for Schahfer and another Indiana plant."
