subsidiary of CMS Energy) to “take all measures necessary” to ensure that the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in West Olive, Michigan remained available to operate.
As a result of the two orders, says the US DOE, the Campbell Plant was available to generate large amounts of electricity during the summer 2025 heat wave and “continues to remain a critical asset to maintain reliability in the Midwest.” Prior to the Energy Secretary’s orders, the Campbell Plant was scheduled to be shut down on 31 May 2025.
This shut down date was specified in the Consumers Energy Clean Energy Plan of 2021, which envisaged that Consumers Energy would stop using coal as a fuel source for electricity generation by 2025, making the company one of the first in the USA to go coal-free. The 2021 plan was an update of Consumers Energy’s original 2018 Clean Energy Plan, introducing the pledge to accelerate the elimination of coal to 2025.
The plan called for closure of all three units at the Campbell plant in 2025 in addition to two units at the D.E. Karn coal plant, which were shut down in 2023 (as per the 2018 Clean Energy Plan). The orders for the Campbell power plant to keep operating, issued in May and August, each required 90 days of operation. The second order expired on19 November 2025.
Garrick Rochow, CEO of Consumers Energy, has commended the workforce for its flexibility, with many having their retirement plans disrupted. He said the company “continued to see orders from the Department of Energy” and “we expect those to continue for the long term, and we’re prepared to continue to operate the plant and comply with those orders.” He also noted that the US DOE has “laid out a clear path to cost recovery.”
Not surprisingly, public interest groups have been strongly opposed to what they describe as the illegal emergency orders forcing the Campbell plant to operate beyond its planned retirement date.
The Environmental Defense Fund, for example, said the Trump administration was forcing “the aging, dirty coal power plant to continue burning coal even as the electricity is not needed” and pointed to new financial filings from Consumers Energy that reported “a net loss of $80 million through Sept 30” by keeping the Campbell coal plant in operation.
“The Trump administration is running up people’s electricity bills for an old, polluting coal plant that barely works,” said Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for US clean energy at the Environmental Defense Fund. “What’s outrageous is that after the Department of Energy called the coal plant essential for reliable power this
summer, it ended up breaking down. The grid had more than enough electricity needed to deliver reliable power to homes without this unnecessary, costly mandate. So why continue to keep it open?”
The Environmental Defense Fund claims that in June, when US DOE says that electricity from the Campbell coal-fired plant was needed, there was a surplus of available resources more than ten times the amount of power being provided by Campbell, according to data from the regional TSO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO)). When demand peaked on 23 June, only one Campbell unit was even producing power, the Environmental Defense Fund alleges, “as another unit had been broken for weeks and the third abruptly shut off when it was supposedly “critical” to maintaining reliability.” “These old fossil plants are scheduled to retire for a reason – they’re expensive, dangerous to our health and prone to equipment failures,” Kelly said. “Families and businesses shouldn’t have to pay out of their pockets to keep them on life support when more reliable, cheaper and cleaner energy options exist.”
A report from consultants Grid Strategies has estimated that if the Trump administration continues these mandates to keep aging coal power plants online, it could cost US electricity consumers as much as $6 billion per year.
www.modernpowersystems.com | November/December 2025 | 15
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