Liam Denning, Columnist

Power Producers Should Cheer Coal's Closing Time

Rick Perry's plan to subsidize the energy source runs into market math.

October 9, 2017 at 4:39 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

1507567337_GettyImages-501551392 — Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi

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Et tu, Texas? Barely a week after Energy Secretary Rick Perry pitched his latest plan to revitalize the coal industry, the biggest power company in his home state announced it was shutting down one of the largest coal-fired power plants there.

In fairness, Vistra Energy Corp. has been expected for quite a while to close several of its older coal-fired plants in Texas. The 1,800-megawatt Monticello plant, about 100 miles east of Dallas, began operating the year President Richard Nixon resigned and will shut down in January. Still, Vistra's decision to move forward shows the multiple forces acting on the Texas power market will make it difficult to keep these plants open by regulatory fiat.