The Logan Generating Station implodes in Swedesboro, New Jersey on Dec. 2, 2022.
Green

Demolishing Coal Power to Build Big Grid Batteries

New Jersey is shifting towards maximizing cheap, renewable energy. Watch the implosion of the Logan Generating Station.

It took 625 pounds of explosives and just 15 seconds to bring down one of New Jersey’s last coal-fired power plants. With a roll of thunderous sound and gray, billowing clouds, the 28-year-old Logan Generating Station was demolished earlier this month in a pursuit of cleaner electricity.

Logan’s days were numbered when private-equity giant Starwood Energy Group bought it and a sister coal plant nearby called Chambers in 2018 to transform both into zero-carbon facilities. “There is a definite accelerating trend toward decarbonization,” Starwood Chief Executive Officer Himanshu Saxena said. “In our opinion, it’s irreversible. Folks just have to get on the train.”

In recent years, the 219-megawatt Logan plant was no longer as valuable for the electricity it produced as much as for its location, on an industrial bend of the Delaware River just south of Philadelphia and tied to the largest US power grid. New batteries costing hundreds of millions of dollars — more than 2 million cells housed in about 250 cargo containers  — will be installed in an undeveloped part of the site.

The Logan Generating Station in Swedesboro, New Jersey, US prior to demolition
The Logan coal-fired power plant prior to the implosion. Source: Starwood Energy

The ultimate goal for the batteries is to use very cheap power to charge up, often overnight when demand is low or else when midday sun creates surplus solar generation. But it will take years for the batteries to be used at their full potential. That’s because the grid has a surplus of power supplies at the moment, and there isn’t enough renewable energy in the mix to require batteries as backup. 

“It appears that it’s pretty uneconomic right now to put in batteries,” said Toby Shea, an analyst with Moody’s Investors Service. “You don’t need any batteries” at the moment in the mid-Atlantic states.

But once batteries become a necessary part of the equation, they’ll be well situated by taking over Logan’s substations and transformers — a network of wires, boxes and beams that allow power from the site to be loaded onto the grid. These connection points are prized possessions as PJM Interconnection, which operates the 13-state Eastern power network serving more than 65 million people, is overwhelmed by more than 1,000 projects vying to connect to the grid.

The Logan Generating Plant is pictured being demolished in Swedesboro, New Jersey, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022.
The boiler house stripped to a shell before the Dec. 2 implosion. Photographer: Hannah Beier/Bloomberg

The problem

The implosion of the coal plant on December 2 was the halfway mark of a painstaking process to dismantle the plant.

Starwood Energy first had to convince Atlantic City Electric to agree to shut down the coal plant and replace it with batteries. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities had to sign off on the agreement, and PJM had to make sure Logan’s shutdown wouldn’t suddenly cause power shortages or other grid failures. 

“It took about 12 months to work with all the counterparties to negotiate the agreement,” Saxena said, after the pandemic had already pushed back the whole process by about two years. 

Atlantic City Electric filed to deactivate Logan in January, and the plant officially went offline at the end of May. Before anything could be dismantled, a crew outfitted in white hazardous material jumpsuits collected the chemicals to be discarded. The tanks and pipes used for pollution control were dismantled along with the big conveyer belt that moved coal from the outdoor pile to the top of the boiler building.  The pulverizer, a heavy machine that looks like a jet engine responsible for turning lumps of coal into fine powder, was also taken apart, along with the boiler.

Massive piles of rubble dotting the dusty 40-acre site were sorted by type of metal and building material. The job took time because the deconstruction effort was limited to about two dozen people. 

By the time the buildings were ready for implosion, the two structures looked like Dr. Frankenstein’s monsters: large incisions had been made on their facades to ensure they collapsed in adjacent piles. It took 450 pounds of dynamite and 175 pounds of shaped charges to blow up the 430-foot smoke stack and 15-story boiler building.

The demolition was fast. When the smoke cleared, rubble remained — and now that needs to go. Removal will take about six to eight weeks. The demolition of all concrete foundations will begin after clearing the boiler debris.

The site has to be completely cleared out, likely by next June. Even the smallest fine metal shavings will be collected by hand, sieve and a giant magnet. The field that the coal site sits on will be sold for industrial use. The batteries will be installed atop of an adjacent site on the 105-acre parcel of land.  

The Logan Generating Plant is pictured being demolished in Swedesboro, New Jersey, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022.
Piles of sorted material from the plant. Photographer: Hannah Beier/Bloomberg

The stakes

Though Logan was a small, efficient coal plant, it’s representative of the industry’s economics being crushed. The first force to upend coal electricity was the shale boom, which made it more profitable to burn natural gas, followed by the rise of renewable energy. Nearly 90% of all the power plants that have shut down in the US this year have been coal generators.

Eventually, all the coal plants will shut down unless some game-changing carbon capturing technology emerges. That means more than 200 sites across the US may have to go through a similar process. 

New Jersey is trying to build a balanced grid as it transitions to renewables. Because batteries can charge up overnight using cheap power, like wind, and sell it back to the grid during the day, the state is incentivizing companies to install them.

California and Texas are often brought up as tales to avoid in the energy transition. At times, these states are flooded with more wind and solar power than people and businesses can use, and power prices can fall to negative levels. That means consumers — or battery-storage operators — can be paid to use power. These grid bottlenecks benefit a few people and ultimately prevent cheap renewable energy from flowing freely to most consumers. 

The Logan Generating Plant is pictured being demolished in Swedesboro, New Jersey, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022.
This piece of equipment being demolished is a pulverizer that turns lumps of coal into fine powder that was then blown into the boiler. Photographer: Hannah Beier/Bloomberg

Why it’s tricky

Coal is a notoriously dirty fossil fuel because burning it releases tons of carbon dioxide as well as toxic pollutants such sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals and particulates. The combination of coal ash, fine powder and toxic chemicals means the site has to be evaluated for potential leaks.

Before a teardown can begin, regulators must determine whether any extra environmental remediation is needed to clean up hazardous waste. Logan didn’t need any additional work in part because of the integrity of the liner that prevents ground contamination, said Jeffrey Delgado, head of asset management for Starwood Energy.

Jeff Delgado, Managing Director of Starwood Energy Group, poses for a portrait at the Logan Generating Plant in Swedesboro, New Jersey, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022.
Delgado stands in front of debris from the demolition. Photographer: Hannah Beier/Bloomberg

Hazardous chemicals and waste must be sold off or carefully discarded. Chemical tanks were hosed down with water and that waste is collected, too. Only after months of clearing could the two buildings be imploded.

The little coal that was leftover was sold. Bulldozers tore down the site, creating large piles of concrete blocks, tangles of metal wires, support beams and random rust-hued equipment, giving the area a sepia-toned apocalyptic vibe. Total Wrecking, the contractor for the demolition, expects to recycle or reuse about 98% of the 10,000 tons of concrete, 10,000 tons of metals and 3,000 tons of asphalt from the plant.

Why there’s hope

The Logan power plant was shut about 30 months ahead of schedule, which Atlantic City Electric says will save its customers up to $16 million under the renegotiated contract. Eliminating coal power will also cut about 3.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the equivalent of removing more than 750,000 passenger cars from the road a year, according to MetLife Investment Management, which provided $200 million in financing to tear down New Jersey’s last two coal plants. 

Repurposing old power plants that don’t run more than a couple hundred of hours a year frees up all the valuable space for what Saxena sees as the coming “tidal wave” of renewables. While federal and state mandates are driving some of that development, the push is also coming from voluntary corporate buyers like the big tech companies that favor clean energy. He has his eye on New Jersey’s offshore wind pipeline that will eventually put batteries at the Logan site into a powerful position.

“The more renewables you have,” Saxena said, “you have to have more storage.”

More On Bloomberg