The floodgates are starting to open for coal plant closures out West.

PacificCorp has announced that they will close a coal unit they own at the Cholla plant in AZ this year.

Oregon-based PacifiCorp has announced it plans to close one of the three generators at the Cholla coal-fired power plant in northern Arizona by the end of this year Cholla Unit 4 is a 395-megawatt coal-fired generator at the Cholla plant in the small town of Joseph City, Arizona. It is operated by Arizona Public Service, the state’s largest utility The remaining two units are scheduled to close in 2025.

This comes on top of the recent news that two coal units were just closed at the Colstrip plant in MT. This closure came 3 years ahead of schedule.

One of the largest coal-fired power plants in the western U.S. will close two of its four units by Saturday as the Montana facility edges toward an eventual total shutdown. Colstrip Units 1 and 2 — built in the 1970s when massive strip mines were being developed across Montana and Wyoming — will close as soon as they run out of coal to burn, Talen Energy spokeswoman Taryne Williams said Thursday.

In 2019 - the massive 2,250 Navajo coal plant in AZ shut down and the much smaller 100 MW Nucla plant in Colorado shut down 3 years ahead of schedule.

Here are other planned closures over the next few years.

2020

First unit (730MW) at Transalta plant in WA

2021

the 585 MW unit at Boardman plant in OR - this is last remaining coal plant in OR

First unit (254 MW) at Valmy in NV

2022

the last two units(847 MW) at San Juan coal plant in NM

The first unit(325 MW) at Comanche coal plant in CO.

How long before the last coal plant out West shut down?