A New Hampshire utility and the EPA announced an agreement Wednesday that includes the closure of New England’s last coal-fired power plant. Under the terms of the agreement, Granite Shore Power will close the 460-MW Merrimack Station plant in Bow, New Hampshire, by June 2028 and a dormant 100-MW plant in Portsmouth by next summer. It will also build multiple “renewable energy parks” at the locations of the coal plants to house battery storage facilities.
Up until December 2023, the Merrimack Station supplied more than half of the New Hampshire grid’s electricity but more recently have only operated intermittently, repeatedly in violation of emissions standards. Granite Shore hopes the battery station installed at the Portsmouth site, which will have enough capacity to power 24,000 homes per year, will serve as a destination for electricity produced by future offshore wind facilities in the region. (Boston Globe $, New Hampshire Public Radio, PV Magazine, New York Times $, Concord Monitor, AP, E&E $, The Hill)