Its New Jersey plants – Hudson Generation Station in Jersey City and Mercer Generation Station in Hamilton Township, will be retired on 1 June, 2017.
The company said that the closing of the plants will affect nearly 200 employees split between the two locations.
PSEG Power president and chief operating officer said: “The sustained low prices of natural gas have put economic pressure on these plants for some time.
“In that context, we could not justify the significant investment required to upgrade these plants to meet the new reliability standards.”
“The plants have been infrequently called on to run and neither plant cleared the last two PJM capacity auctions. The plants’ capacity payments have been critical to their profitability and PSEG’s ability to continue to invest in modernizing them.”
While Mercer Generation Station currently has a capacity of 632 MW, Hudson Generation Station generates 620 MW.
As part of its commitment to meet the long-term energy needs of New Jersey and the region, PSEG is investing over $600m in combined-cycled gas plant in Sewaren, New Jersey, as well as new plants in Connecticut and Maryland.
In New Jersey, its gas facilities have a generation capacity of 4,000MW, while its nuclear generation stands at approximately 2,500 MW.
PSEG said that New Jersey’s energy will be split almost evenly between nuclear and natural gas following the coal plant closure announcement.
Levis said: “We continue to believe that it is unwise for New Jersey to become too overly dependent on one source of energy.
“With the continued low cost of natural gas, it is important that we recognize and support the full value of non-carbon, non-polluting nuclear and renewable energy.”
