Sierra Club report: Clean energy fail to make the grade in Mississippi

By Alex Rozier | Originally published by Mississippi Today

In a new report, Sierra Club takes aim at electric utilities across the United States for their slow transition to clean energy sources. The analysis included less than flattering grades for the state’s two investor-owned power companies, Entergy Mississippi and Mississippi Power.

The marks — an “F” for Entergy and a “C” for Mississippi Power — came in the latest edition of the national environmental advocacy nonprofit’s “The Dirty Truth Report,” released Wednesday.

The report graded the country’s utilities using three criteria: the retiring of coal plants by 2030, not adding new gas-powered production and building clean energy sources to replace fossil fuel loads by 2035. For the second year in a row, the nonprofit gave the country’s utilities as a whole an “F.”

“As artificial intelligence data centers drive demand for energy, utility companies are rushing to expensive and dangerous fossil fuels, leading to soaring electricity prices and worsening air pollution,” said Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender.

The nonprofit highlighted the large amount of planned new gas generation this year, which was more than in any of the previous five years.

The report gave Entergy a failing grade largely because it plans to add nearly 3,500 megawatts of gas-powered energy to its system by 2035. The utility is growing its power capacity, in part, to meet the needs of Amazon data centers across central Mississippi. It’s unclear, though, how much those plans were fueled by Amazon’s arrival because of limited oversight over the companies’ agreement.

Sierra Club gave the utility a poor grade despite its plans to retire all of its coal units by 2030 and Entergy’s recent investments in renewable sources, which includes a 100-megawatt solar power plant that came online in 2022.

The utility is building three new, 754-megawatt gas plants: one in Greenville, set to be ready in 2028, which will replace an existing plant and is designed to use hydrogen in the future; another plant in Ridgeland, expected to be in service in 2029; and one in Vicksburg, which will open in 2028.

Entergy said in a response to the Sierra Club report that it aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

“We continue to invest in renewable power and storage projects, with approximately 3 gigawatts either already approved or pending regulatory review,” the company said Thursday in a statement to Mississippi Today. “Driven by strong economic growth and rising customer demand, we are developing new baseload generation capacity to power these exciting opportunities while continuing to make meaningful progress toward a net‑zero future. Changes to available tax credits for carbon‑free resources are also shaping how we optimize our clean energy investments.”

Mississippi Power, which received an “F” in last year’s edition, improved to a “C” this year. It plans to retire all of its coal power units by 2030 and is planning for 548 megawatts of new gas production by 2035.

The utility received the best grade of any subsidiary of Southern Company. The report panned the energy giant for extending the lives of its coal units. Last year, Mississippi Power received approval from the state to push back the retirement of its coal units at Plant Victor J. Daniel in Jackson County. But the utility later proposed to convert the units to gas in 2029, the Sierra Club report said.

The report, though, gave the company a “0%” in its plans to replace fossil fuel generation and load growth with clean energy. The company’s power supply has included roughly 160 megawatts of solar power for nearly the last decade.

In a Thursday statement, Mississippi Power pointed to those projects as well as its low rates, 22% below the national average.

“The company continues to reliably meet our customers’ ever-evolving energy needs and is in a strong position to ensure adequate capacity and the ability to serve our customers as the state experiences robust economic growth,” the utility said.

The company also mentioned the potential benefits from a solar power battery storage project in Walnut Grove, which it called “one of the nation’s most advanced green microgrids.”

“Lessons learned from the project are helping inform how renewable energy and battery storage may be integrated into our system in the future,” Mississippi Power said.

This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Source: Original Article