Dive Brief:
- The Environmental Protection Agency has approved Arizona utility Salt River Project's plan to retire a 750 MW coal-fired generating unit at its 2,250 MW Navajo power plant to meet the EPA Clean Air Act's regional haze standards.
- The 750 MW coal unit is scheduled for retirement by the end of 2019, bringing the capacity of all planned coal plant retirements in the Southwest region up to 2,760 by 2020.
Dive Insight:
The EPA adopted emissions limits in January 2013 to cut nitrogen oxide emissions, a significant driver of regional haze, at the Navajo plant. These limits would have required selective catalytic reduction technology, which would have cost $1.1 billion, according to Salt River.
Instead, stakeholders the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Gila River Indian Community, the Navajo Nation, the Department of the Interior, the Western Resource Advocates and the Salt River Project developed an alternative, less costly plan that will deliver larger cuts in nitrogen oxide emissions than the original EPA plan.