Michigan coal plant to go offline by 2025
A worker in the coal industry handles coal at a coal prep plant on May 19, 2017 outside the city of Welch, West Virginia. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - A coal-burning power plant in central Michigan will go offline by 2025.
The Lansing State Journal reports that the planned retirement of Delta Township's Erickson Power Plant is part of an agreement the Lansing Board of Water & Light made with the Sierra Club, an environmental group.
The utility also made plans in 2015 to retire the coal-burning Eckert Power Plant in Lansing by 2020. Its website says the two plants create more than 500 megawatts of power combined.
Sierra Club Beyond Clean Coal Campaign Director Regina Strong says the group planned to sue the utility for environmental violations at the plants before the agreement was made.
Utility spokesman Stephen Serkaian says the utility plans to replace the plant with a mix of renewable energy, energy efficiency and natural gas.