Ohio Anti-Renewable Bill Would Likely Exclude Coal Generation, Since It Requires Minimum Capacity Factor of 50%

An idea for restricting renewable energy has traveled from Utah to Louisiana and is now in New Hampshire, Arizona and Ohio. The proposed legislation is part of a push by fossil-fuel-aligned groups to promote natural gas and hurt competing power sources. The Ohio bill, Senate Bill 294, amounts to a ban on utility-scale wind and solar by adopting a new definition of “reliable energy source” that would require new power plants to be able to operate at any time of day or night.

In addition, power plants must have “a minimum capacity factor” of 50 percent. A plant’s capacity factor is a measure of how its actual output compares to the maximum that is technically possible. If a plant runs at full capacity around the clock for a year, its capacity factor would be 100 percent. Wind and solar plants have lower capacity factors because they depend on the sun and wind. But grid operators and power companies still rely heavily on wind and solar because they understand the attributes of their power plants and view them as part of a portfolio.

To help explain, let’s look at the average capacity factors for each major power plant technology in 2024, the most recent full year available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It’s no surprise to see nuclear at the top, with 90.8 percent. But then there is a big drop-off before the runner-up, combined-cycle natural gas, at 60.5 percent. Wood-burning power plants are next, with 55.8 percent. (This is a small but significant source of electricity, with 7,300 megawatts of U.S. capacity.) After that, every other power source is below the 50 percent benchmark in the Ohio bill. This includes renewables, such as wind and solar, which have capacity factors of 34.3 percent and 23.2 percent, respectively. Hydropower, another leading renewable energy source, is 34.6 percent.

But many fossil-fuel power plants also fall below the threshold. This includes coal-fired power plants, with 42.6 percent. It also includes natural gas peaker plants, such as simple-cycle gas turbines, with 13.9 percent, and all oil-burning plants, which are less than 10 percent.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19022026/inside-clean-energy-ohio-wind-solar-coal-ban/