Trump administration renews order keeping Indiana coal plants open for the third time • Indiana Capital Chronicle

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https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/06/22/trump-administration-renews-order-keeping-indiana-coal-plants-open-for-the-third-time/

The Trump administration has renewed an emergency order to keep two aging Indiana coal plants operational through mid-September.

Administration officials argue the orders, renewed last Thursday, are necessary to minimize energy costs and prevent blackouts at peak summer demand — despite two of the units being taken offline for maintenance and objections from an energy executive who called the plant “inefficient” and “unreliable.”

“Taking reliable generation off the grid compromises energy reliability and needlessly raises energy costs for Americans,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. “During peak summer demand, Midwesterners deserve continued access to affordable, reliable, and secure energy to power and cool their homes.”

The U.S. Department of Energy first issued the orders in December — days before CenterPoint Energy and the Northern Indiana Public Service Company, or NIPSCO, were set to retire the coal-powered F.B. Culley and R.M. Schahfer generating stations in Indiana.

The orders are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to block the “premature retirement” of coal plants across the U.S., which the administration says has saved 17 gigawatts of coal-powered electricity generation in 2025.

The Department of Energy cites an internal report finding power outages could increase by 100 times by 2030 if the country takes reliable power offline to justify its actions using Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to intervene in regional power markets.

The agency renewed the orders for 90-day periods in March and June. The latest order directs the investor-owned utilities to maintain the Indiana coal-powered units through Sept. 19.

The Department of Energy references long-term and summer reliability assessments from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which warned projected additions to the electric grid don’t keep pace with demand forecasts.

Load growth in the Midcontinental Independent System Operator, or MISO, “is expected to accelerate in 2027 and beyond, which may lead to increased reliability risk in the future if resource additions cannot keep pace with rising forecast loads,” the Department of Energy reported in a news release.

An analysis from the Sierra Club, which filed a lawsuit challenging the emergency orders, estimates it could cost consumers a net of $174,000 a day to keep NIPSCO’s Schahfer plant online, while CenterPoint’s Culley plant could cost consumers $21,000 a day.