THE COAL COST CROSSOVER: ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF EXISTING COAL COMPARED TO NEW LOCAL WIND AND SOLAR RESOURCES

The report finds that a significant portion of the U.S. coal fleet is now more expensive to operate than replacing it with new local wind and solar power. In 2018, 74% of the fleet was 'at risk' of being undercut by renewables, a figure projected to rise to 86% by 2025. The analysis emphasizes that these findings are conservative because they only consider resources within 35 miles of existing plants and do not account for broader transmission expansion or combined energy portfolios.

• In 2018, approximately 74 percent of the U.S. coal fleet, totaling 211 gigawatts (GW), was 'at risk', meaning local wind or solar could provide the same amount of electricity more cheaply. This figure is projected to increase to 86 percent of the fleet, or 246 GW, by 2025.
• A subset of the fleet is 'substantially at risk', where local renewables can undercut coal's ongoing costs by at least 25 percent. In 2018, this applied to 94 GW of capacity, increasing to 140 GW—nearly half the U.S. fleet—by 2025, even with the phase-out of federal tax credits.
• The analysis identifies strong regional trends: almost all coal plants in the PJM footprint are projected to be at risk by 2025, and nearly all coal plants in the Southeast are substantially at risk of replacement by local solar by 2025.
• The cost of operating existing coal plants (MCOE) generally ranges from $33 to $111 per megawatt-hour (MWh). In comparison, 2018 costs for solar were between $28 and $52 per MWh, while wind costs ranged from $13 to $88 per MWh.
• The report notes that the potential stranded asset value of at-risk coal plants is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

APA

GIMON, E., O’BOYLE, M., CLACK, C. T., & MCKEE, S. (2019). THE COAL COST CROSSOVER: ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF EXISTING COAL COMPARED TO NEW LOCAL WIND AND SOLAR RESOURCES. Energy Innovation. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Coal-Cost-Crossover_Energy-Innovation_VCE_FINAL2.pdf

Chicago

GIMON, ERIC, MIKE O’BOYLE, CHRISTOPHER T.M. CLACK, and SARAH MCKEE. THE COAL COST CROSSOVER: ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF EXISTING COAL COMPARED TO NEW LOCAL WIND AND SOLAR RESOURCES. Energy Innovation, 2019. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Coal-Cost-Crossover_Energy-Innovation_VCE_FINAL2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=GIMON |first1=ERIC |last2=O’BOYLE |first2=MIKE |last3=CLACK |first3=CHRISTOPHER T.M. |last4=MCKEE |first4=SARAH |title=THE COAL COST CROSSOVER: ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF EXISTING COAL COMPARED TO NEW LOCAL WIND AND SOLAR RESOURCES |publisher=Energy Innovation |date=March 2019 |url=https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Coal-Cost-Crossover_Energy-Innovation_VCE_FINAL2.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{gimon2019coal, author = {GIMON, ERIC and O’BOYLE, MIKE and CLACK, CHRISTOPHER T.M. and MCKEE, SARAH}, title = {{THE COAL COST CROSSOVER: ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF EXISTING COAL COMPARED TO NEW LOCAL WIND AND SOLAR RESOURCES}}, institution = {Energy Innovation}, year = {2019}, month = mar, url = {https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Coal-Cost-Crossover_Energy-Innovation_VCE_FINAL2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }