MG&E stops burning coal in Madison plant
Energy writer Thomas Content keeps you current as you adapt to changes in the world of energy, climate change and efforts to build a greener economy.
Madison Gas & Electric Co. has all but stopped burning coal at its downtown Madison power plant, the company said Thursday.
The electric utility serving Madison and parts of Dane County announced several years ago that it would cease burning coal at its Blount Street power plant by the end of 2011. The company stopped burning coal last month and converted the 1903 power plant to run on natural gas instead, utility spokesman Steve Kraus said.
"The chances of us burning coal at Blount have been diminished greatly," he said, adding that it could still happen from time to time but that it's unlikely.
The shift reduced employment at the power plant to 42 workers and resulted in five layoffs, Kraus said.
The company is relying instead on electricity from coal burned at We Energies' new $2.3 billion power plant in Oak Creek. MG&E has an 8% stake in the project. The first boiler at Oak Creek built by Bechtel Power began operation in February, with the second boiler scheduled to be completed later this year.
The Madison utility said it is ahead of schedule on targets it set several years ago for greening its energy supply by 2015.
Because of falling energy use and increased use of wind power, the utility plans to scale back the portion of its power supply derived from coal even further by 2015.
With added generation from a wind power project in Iowa, MG&E has increased its renewable power production nearly 12-fold in recent years.
Customers have responded to rising energy rates and a desire to conserve by cutting back on energy use, whether by installing energy-efficient light bulbs or replacing furnaces and other appliances, or getting their homes retrofitted to reduce energy waste.
As a result, the average use by an MG&E customer is down 6% since 2005. Some of that is linked to the economy, of course, but the decline in energy use began well before the recession, Kraus said.
MG&E has the highest electric rates for residential customers of any investor-owned utility in Wisconsin, according to the state Public Service Commission. When factoring in declining use, however, the typical residential customer's bill has gone up less than 3% since 2005, Kraus said.
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