POWER June 2016 - 39

WORKFORCE
How Generating Companies Are
Assisting Affected Workers
Much of the existing coal generation capacity
in the U.S. was built from the 1950s to
the 1990s during a time when electricity sales
were growing much faster than population
and gross domestic product. The coal units
that were retired in 2015 were mainly built
between 1950 and 1970, and the average age
of those units was 54 years. According to the
EIA's research, the rest of the coal fleet that
continues to operate is somewhat younger,
with an average age of 38 years.
The units closed in 2015 also tended to be
smaller than the rest of the coal fleet. The net
summer capacity of the average retired coal
unit was 133 MW, compared with 278 MW
for the units still operating. Often because
they were older, some of these plants required
larger workforces to operate and maintain per
megawatt of capacity.
Just like the facilities they work in, the
average age of workers at many coal-fired
power plants nationwide has steadily
crept upward as many anticipated eventual
retirement. There are several important
contextual factors to remember when considering
job losses in the coal-fired generation
sector:
■ The average worker at a coal plant is over
50 years old.
■ The average coal plant has multiple units.
■ Retirements always happen with multiple
years of forewarning.
■ Some generating companies have been
able to move workers from coal-fired to
newer gas-fired plants.
All things considered, with careful planning,
in many instances staff numbers have
painlessly dropped at a given location
through natural attrition, without layoffs.
An example of a successful transition occurred
in Holland, Michigan, recently. Just
before tax day this year, the 76-year-old
James De Young Power Plant on the shore
of Lake Macatawa (Figure 2) fired up two
natural gas-powered units as the plant finally
converted away from coal. Owned by
the Holland Board of Public Works (BPW),
a mid-April date to stop burning coal had
long been in the BPW's plan, said Dave
Koster, general manager of the BPW. The
Holland Sentinel newspaper reported that
there were about 35 workers at the plant
who will be moving in shifts to the new
Holland Energy Park as they gain training
for their careers in natural gas and other
energy systems.
Koster told the paper that no layoffs are
needed. " It's been a key power resource that
helped make our electric system reliable and
June 2016 | POWER
3. Gone but not forgotten. American Electric Power's (AEP's) Kanawha River Plant,
located on the Kanawha River at Glasgow, W.Va., was retired in mid-2015. Courtesy: AEP
2. James De Young Power Plant retires. While there will be some workforce
shrinking related to coal and ash pond handling, most employees from this Michigan plant will
transition to the gas-fired Holland Energy Park. Courtesy: Holland Board of Public Works
cost effective for the development of businesses
in our area and I'm glad we'll be
able to transition our staff over to the new
plant. "
Likewise, for generation behemoths
such as the heavily coal-dependent American
Electric Power (AEP), careful planning
helped save many jobs (Figure 3). By early
2016, AEP will retire more than 6,000
MW of coal-fired generating capacity at
11 power plants in seven states. Typical of
these older plants slated for retirement is
AEP's Philip Sporn Plant near New Haven,
West Virginia, though the adjacent Mountaineer
9 plant is not.
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In total, AEP had approximately 570 positions
that were affected by upcoming generating
unit retirements. As early as 2012,
when the company identified the 23 coal-fueled
generating units at nine sites that would
close due to MATS and other environmental
regulations, " We specifically held positions
that came open (due to retirements or people
leaving) at other power plants not being
closed to help reduce the job impacts from
the generating unit closures, " said Melissa
McHenry, director of external communications
at AEP in an email to POWER. " That
meant new positions at other power plants
or other AEP departments for nearly half of
37

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POWER June 2016

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