When the Homer Metropolis energy plant—the biggest coal-fired facility in Pennsylvania—shuttered in 2023, it marked the tip of a unclean period for the coal crops that dominated America’s electrical grid for over half a century. Now, in a whirlwind turnaround, lots of them are being revived to gasoline the AI period.
Earlier this 12 months, builders introduced they might take the coal plant’s corpse—and its invaluable grid interconnections—and resurrect it into the Homer Metropolis Power Campus, a sprawling AI information heart complicated powered by the biggest pure gas-fired energy plant within the nation, opening on a fast-tracked timeline in 2027.
With U.S. electrical energy demand projected to surge by as a lot as 60% by way of 2050 to gasoline the AI increase—initiating a race towards time to construct enough energy era—the robust previous bones of closed or retiring coal crops provide a shortcut to get new energy initiatives on-line way more shortly. They will skip the two-year queue for high-voltage grid connections—no matter whether or not these initiatives are for gasoline, wind, photo voltaic, geothermal, and even new-age nuclear.
“Our grid isn’t short on opportunity — it’s short on time,” stated Carson Kearl, Enverus senior analyst for power and AI. “These grid interconnections are up for grabs for brand new energy initiatives when these coal crops roll off.
“The No. 1 priority for Big Tech has changed to [speed] to energy, and this is the fastest way to go in a lot of cases,” Kearl informed Fortune.
American coal energy plunged from 50% of the nation’s grid as lately as 2005 down to simply 16% and falling as we speak, courtesy of the shale gasoline drilling rush and the rise of renewables. However coal nonetheless represents greater than half of the grid’s carbon emissions. Whereas wind and solar energy are emission-free, switching to new gasoline crops nonetheless represents a 60% emissions discount from coal.
Within the final 20 years, as extra coal crops closed, U.S. energy emissions plummeted 40%, accounting for greater than 75% of the nation’s whole decline in carbon dioxide emissions, in keeping with the Environmental Safety Company.
The power analysis agency Enverus estimates that no less than 70 gigawatts of retired coal energy capability—sufficient to energy 50 million properties, or virtually 100 information facilities—could be transformed to scrub (or cleaner) energy sources.
Energy generator and utility proprietor Xcel Power (No. 319 on the Fortune 500) is within the strategy of changing previous coal crops to each gas-fired and renewable energy from Minnesota to Texas. And plenty of extra initiatives are on the best way within the years to come back, stated Xcel chairman and CEO Bob Frenzel.
“Tech is looking for speed, they’re looking for electricity and, in some cases, we have both,” Frenzel informed Fortune. “We’ve been able to use those interconnections quite successfully to repower with more efficient and more clean energy resources.”
Xcel Power CEO Bob Frenzel, on the 2025 Semafor World Economic system Summit, discusses power wants and financial outlooks.
Switching to wind, photo voltaic, gasoline, nuclear, and extra
Most new energy building within the U.S. is presently focused on photo voltaic, wind, and accompanying battery power storage, however the Trump administration’s struggle on renewables—simply when the nation wants extra energy—means wind and photo voltaic tax credit expire after 2027.
The clear power initiatives underway largely will get constructed—some using coal interconnections—however way more coal-to-gas switching will happen to satisfy the wants of AI, particularly in gas-rich areas equivalent to Pennsylvania, Texas, and Colorado.
“We as an industry are racing to meet the needs of this new critical national security asset,” Frenzel stated of the AI increase. “We’re excited concerning the alternative, however it’s going to take an all-hands strategy to get it performed.
“After [renewable tax credits expire], we as a country must commercialize other assets. Gas is a great bridge fuel, and we’re going to continue to use a lot of gas,” Frenzel added.
Within the 2030s, new nuclear and geothermal energy services will come on-line, he stated, however these era sources require extra improvement time and allowing hurdles.
In Sherburne County, Minnesota, Xcel is retiring its legacy coal plant, taking the primary unit offline final 12 months and absolutely closing it by 2030. As a replacement, Xcel is growing an array of photo voltaic, wind, and battery energy. The challenge consists of the longest-duration battery storage within the nation, a 100-hour battery system developed by Type Power. The aim is to energy a knowledge heart hub there, Frenzel stated. Xcel and Meta are working collectively on a Minnesota challenge. Amazon additionally lately purchased adjoining land, though its plans are presently paused.
Within the Texas Panhandle, Xcel simply transformed its Harrington coal plant to gas-fired energy. Up subsequent, is the close by Tolk coal facility additionally slated for a swap to gasoline. Xcel plans to construct about 2 gigawatts of recent wind and solar energy within the space to satisfy oil and gasoline trade electrification wants, in addition to for the transformation of a crypto mining web site into a knowledge heart complicated, Frenzel stated.
Likewise, Xcel is sort of completed changing its Pawnee coal plant in Colorado to gas-fired energy. Xcel’s Hayden coal plant in Colorado is slated for closure in 2028, and geothermal energy is into consideration for that web site. Xcel is working with information heart developer QTS within the state.
In a extra distinctive twist on coal-to-gas switching, the Intermountain coal plant in Utah is switching to gasoline, however it’s additionally using a inexperienced hydrogen mix with the gasoline to make it burn cleaner. And a few coal-to-gas entails utilizing battery storage as properly. The AES Petersburg coal plant in Indiana is switching to a gas-fired and battery storage combo complicated.
Elsewhere within the nation, even coal-to-nuclear plans are underway. Invoice Gates’ TerraPower is growing a next-generation nuclear plant slated to open by 2030 on an expedited schedule—in a partnership with Sabey Knowledge Facilities—using the interconnections of the Naughton coal and gasoline plant, which is able to begin closing subsequent 12 months.
Nonetheless, at the same time as coal plant retirements had been moved up lately, some are being pushed backwards once more towards their authentic closure dates now that the grid is being strained and the Trump administration is championing coal energy.
As an example, Maryland’s final coal plant, Brandon Shores, was slated to shut this 12 months, however will now keep up till 2029 as an influence bridge for the AI increase. Likewise, the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan was prolonged from its Might closure date till no less than November.
The Trump administration’s orders to maintain “beautiful clean coal” alive are solely momentary. The crops are nonetheless going to shut; they simply obtained stays on their execution dates.
The “clean coal” phrasing was a part of a lobbying and advertising and marketing push for extra modernized—and fewer soiled—coal crops about 15 years in the past, however the language has largely disappeared outdoors of the White Home as coal continues to get replaced by renewables and cleaner, cheaper gasoline.
The coal lobbying group, Individuals for Balanced Power Selections, rebranded in 2008 because the American Coalition for Clear Coal Electrical energy. They gave up on that in 2019, altering to the extra succinct and generically named America’s Energy. Since then, utilities and railroads have left the group, leaving its membership solely to coal corporations.
Coal smoke and steam vapor pour out of the Bruce Mansfield Energy Plant throughout from a largely deserted kids’s park in Shippingport, Pennsylvania previous to the plant shuttering in 2019.
Massive Appalachian gasoline alternative
In July, about 85 miles west of Homer Metropolis in Pennsylvania, it was introduced by the challenge’s builders that the previous Bruce Mansfield coal plant, padlocked in 2019, can be transformed to gas-fired energy as the brand new Shippingport Energy Station to assist gasoline the AI revolution.
That very same day, the builders additionally publicized the biggest pure gasoline producer within the Appalachia area, EQT, would provide each the Shippingport and Homer Metropolis initiatives with a mixed 1.5 billion cubic toes per day of gasoline provides.
“Just to put this in perspective, that’s enough natural gas to power two of New York City. Scale matters,” EQT CEO Toby Rice informed Fortune. “Homer City and Shippingport are just the first steps of multiple steps in multiple projects, because I do believe that cluster effect is real. They already have connections to the grid, which is a huge fast pass.”
EQT is able to assist lead an AI tech increase in Pennsylvania and the broader Appalachia area with the benefit that it’s house to the biggest pure gasoline subject within the nation, the Marcellus Shale. And EQT has its personal pipeline enterprise to attach on to information facilities as wanted.
Rice is main the cost to make pure gasoline as clear as doable, by way of improved know-how and upcoming carbon seize and storage initiatives. It incudes a advertising and marketing push—in spite of everything, “natural gas” sounds a lot nicer than “methane.” “People need to understand the natural gas decarbonization train has not slowed down,” he stated.
Rusty Hutson, the CEO of gasoline producer Diversified Power agrees. Methane is the product, he stated, and the producers don’t need to waste the gasoline in emissions. “We want to sell it. At the end of the day, going through a pipeline and going through a meter is much more beneficial to us than any emissions are,” Hutson informed Fortune.
Whereas EQT will give attention to drilling new wells to feed the AI beast, Diversified operates extra mature gasoline wells which can be typically undesirable by the largest gamers.
“Data centers, especially in the Appalachian basin, are going to be a huge demand on natural gas,” Hutson stated. “We can’t afford to lose any production because other companies are focused on the drill bit and not really on existing wells and existing operations. That’s where we come in to maintain and produce those wells in an efficient manner to keep them in production for longer.”
As Rice and Hutson argued, the development is far larger although than an Appalachia story. Enverus’ Kearl stated the AI race could very properly be received or misplaced based mostly on how quickly previous coal crops could be repowered to different era sources nationwide.
“Repowering isn’t just a cost play—it’s a political and logistical shortcut to growing 24/7, low-carbon power,” Kearl stated.
