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Nearly 70 protesters arrested at New England's largest coal-fired power plant

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Nearly 70 protesters arrested at New England's largest coal-fired power plant

SNL Image

The coal- and oil-fired Merrimack power plant in Bow, N.H.
Source: AP Photo

Nearly 70 protesters were arrested for trespassing at New England’s largest coal-fired power plant, Granite Shore Power LLC’s approximately 439-MW Merrimack facility in Bow, N.H.

The Bow Police Department made the arrests for criminal trespass on Sept. 28 when more than 120 anti-fossil fuel activists, wearing white hazmat suits and carrying buckets to haul away the plant’s coal supplies, marched on the coal- and oil-fired Merrimack power plant to shut down the facility. The activists also demanded a halt to Liberty Utilities Co.'s proposed $340 million Granite Bridge project for a 16-inch, 30-mile natural gas pipeline and a 2-Bcf liquefied natural gas storage facility. Police said no injuries or property damages were reported.

"With projects like that in the works, it is clear that New Hampshire is not on the path to 100% clean, safe, renewable energy," protest organizer Jennifer Dube said in an online post for 350.org affiliate, 350 New Hampshire. "We are fighting to stop this harmful pipeline project and to shut down the last major coal-fired power plant in New Hampshire."

Dube and the other activists called on elected officials to endorse a pro-renewable Green New Deal energy transition.

Along with being the largest coal-fired power plant in New England, Merrimack is also one of two coal-fired power plants in the region that has not yet announced a retirement date and are slated to stay online past 2021. The other coal plant without a retirement date is GSP’s approximately 140-MW coal- and biomass-fired Schiller facility in Portsmouth, N.H.

Built in 1960, the Merrimack facility hardly runs these days for economic reasons as it is no longer used to supply baseload power for ISO New England’s market, Granite Shore Power President James Andrews told the Concord Monitor ahead of the protests.

Since being acquired in January 2018 from Eversource Energy subsidiary Public Service Co. of New Hampshire, Andrews said that the plant has yet to order another coal delivery by rail and may have enough coal left behind by Eversource to get through the 2019-2020 winter as well. Andrews said that most, if not all, of Merrimack's electricity production will occur between Dec. 15 and March 15, 2020.

According to S&P Global Market Intelligence data for summer 2018 operations, Merrimack produced a net generation of 549,054 MWh at a capacity factor of 14.29%. The total operating and maintenance expense for Merrimack for summer 2018 was $67.58/MWh. According to ISO-NE, New England's few remaining coal-fired power plants generated only 1,109 GWh of electricity to meet 0.9% of net load in the ISO-NE wholesale power market.

Under the $175 million deal that saw GSP acquire Merrimack and Schiller as part of a larger 1,130-MW portfolio of fossil fuel-fired power plants in New Hampshire, the new owners must keep the plants in service for at least 18 months.

Merrimack is also the target of a Clean Water Act suit currently before the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire. Filed in March by the Conservation Law Foundation and the Sierra Club, the complaint alleges that the coal power is polluting the Merrimack River with excess hot water and has been operating with an out-of-date federal permit for discharging hot water for years. On Sept. 13, Judge Joseph Laplante denied GSP's request to dismiss the suit (Civil No. 19-cv-216-JL).

GSP is a joint venture of Atlas Holdings and Castleton Commodities International LLC. GSP did not respond immediately to requests for comment. Liberty Utilities is a subsidiary of Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp.