Barb Deardorff has lived in the Kankakee Township area near Wheatfield for about 50 years, only leaving for college and a semester studying abroad in Spain.
She lives about two miles away from Northern Indiana Public Service Company’s R.M. Schahfer Generating Station, which she says hasn’t been a great neighbor.
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Recent news that two coal generating units at the facility are broken doesn’t change her opinion.
“It’s interesting, and it’s disappointing,” Deardorff said. “And I think it’s foolish that the Trump administration is demanding that those two units stay open and not be retired as they were scheduled to be in 2025.”
As the potential renewal of a U.S. Department of Energy 90-day emergency order looms, Earthjustice announced that an Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission forum revealed that the Schahfer power plant’s coal units 17 and 18 are broken.
According to Earthjustice, unit 18 has been broken since the start of the emergency order, which was issued on Dec. 23 by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. The 90-day order was renewed on March 24, and it’s expected to receive another renewal on June 21.
A DOE spokesperson said the emergency order “prevented blackouts and likely saved hundreds of thousands of lives” during this past year. Environmental and utility advocates say the order has had no benefits and continues to cost ratepayers money.
“As Secretary Wright has stated repeatedly, the value of any grid should be measured by how it performs when demand for electricity is at peak levels — not during regular demand periods when there are oftentimes abundant amounts of excess capacity,” the statement said.
Between Jan. 21 and Feb. 1, Schahfer operated at more than 285 megawatts every day, according to the DOE, which the statement claims shows the reliable supply of power that it gave during extreme winter months.
“These operations serve as a reminder that allowing reliable generation to go offline would unnecessarily contribute to grid reliability risks,” the statement said. “Americans deserve access to affordable, reliable, and secure energy to power their homes and these emergency authorizations do just that.”
The statement did not acknowledge the news that two coal units are broken, and it did not address concerns of unnecessary utility bill increases for ratepayers.
A NIPSCO spokesperson also issued a statement regarding the claims that the units are broken and the executive order.
“NIPSCO continues to comply with the U.S. Department of Energy’s 202(c) order regarding R.M. Schahfer Generating Station,” the statement said. “Units 17 and 18 are offline while inspections, maintenance and repair work continue. Details on the repair scope, timing and cost estimates are still being evaluated, and no additional information is available at this time.”
Earthjustice Senior Attorney Sameer Doshi said the environmental law firm — along with Indiana’s Citizens Action Coalition — found out that the units were broken during an IURC forum on May 19. Unit 18 has been broken and under repairs since last summer, Doshi said, adding that as of May 19, it was still under repairs.
Unit 17 was running “to varying degrees,” since the DOE’s first emergency order, Doshi said.
NIPSCO told the IURC during the forum that planned return dates for both units are tentatively scheduled for the end of September, according to the forum livestream, which is posted on YouTube.
“If that’s true, … that means the next 202(c) emergency order from the federal government that we expect around June 21 would cover a 90-day period going through the summer, coinciding almost exactly with the official start of summer and official end of summer,” Doshi said. “It would cover a period during which both units of the Schahfer coal plant are unavailable to run.”