By: Marty Schladen – Ohio Capital Journal

Environmental activists have been pressing the company buying an Ohio coal plant said to be the nation’s deadliest to retire the facility. But that seems unlikely, given statements it made in a regulatory filing that it provided to the Ohio Capital Journal.

The buyer, Energy Capital Partners, has boasted of helping plants make the transition away from coal. It hasn’t answered questions about its plans for Gavin, but in a Dec. 11 filing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, it expressed no such plans for the Gavin Plant.

“As with any electric generation facility, (Energy Capital Partners) and Javelin expect that the Gavin facility… will continue to operate for so long as they are legally able to do so on an economic basis,” it said.

Energy Capital Partners, or ECP, and Javelin are private-equity firms that are in the process of buying the 50-year-old plant from another private-equity firm, Blackstone. The 2,600 megawatt plant along the Ohio River near Cheshire has stirred controversy for years.

To settle lawsuits in 2002, a former owner, American Electric Power, bought out residents around the plant for more than three times the value of their property.

The generating facility had been dumping toxic coal ash into unlined pits, creating worries that it would contaminate groundwater. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2022 ordered it to stop, and now its owners face a $40 million cleanup liability.

And a 2023 analysis by the Sierra Club looked at coal-plant emissions and weather patterns. It concluded that because it sends a plume of toxins over populous areas in the eastern United States, the Gavin plant is the deadliest in the country, killing an estimated 244 people a year.

Many investors have been turning away from fossil fuels — and especially coal — as a method of powering electricity generation. But private-equity investors have been taking up some of the slack, with nearly 80% of their power plant investments being in those fueled by coal or gas.

Private equity has been stigmatized over claims that it practices one of the harshest forms of capitalism. They often buy assets in deals that quickly recoup their investments, then frequently sell off the most valuable parts of an enterprise, and then walk away either by selling or declaring bankruptcy. Whether people needlessly lose jobs or consumers lose choices is not a consideration, critics say.

That has left environmentalists and private-equity critics worried that Gavin’s owners will continue to operate it as a polluting coal plant, then close it, and find a way to stick taxpayers with any cleanup costs.

However, Energy Capital Partners bills itself as a company that helps utilities convert from using coal.

“Energy Capital Partners (ECP) is a leading credit and equity investor across energy transition infrastructure, with a focus on investing in electricity and sustainability infrastructure, providing reliable, affordable clean energy,” its website says.

The company last week declined to respond to questions, other than to send the Dec. 11 filing it made in a FERC proceeding. In it, ECP made several statements that seem to indicate the company plans to keep the Gavin plant operating as it is.

“Notably, the Gavin facility has an existing long-term contract for coal supply with a supplier unaffiliated with Javelin, and ECP and Javelin have no intention of altering those arrangements,” it says.

The filing also said that it’s just speculation that the new owners plan to retire the plant.

“… regarding a secondhand, unnamed source’s speculation regarding plans to retire the Gavin facility, ECP and Javelin confirm that there are no such plans,” it said. “Notably, even the post cited by the Joint Protesters for the proposition that Gavin may be retired ‘in the coming years’ simply states (again, based on an unnamed source) that the facility may close or be converted to run on a different fuel by 2031, which is well outside of the forward-looking view on which the Commission relies in reviewing Section 203 applications.”

A group critical of the practices of private-equity investors asked what it would take to close the Gavin Plant

Marty Schladen

Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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