DTE Energy Co. announced Tuesday a company goal to rid itself of coal-burning power plants by 2040 in an effort to reduce harmful carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

Gerry Anderson, chairman and CEO of DTE, said the Detroit-based utility will invest $15 billion over the next three decades in renewable energy and natural gas-burning power generation for its 2.2 million electricity customers in Southeast Michigan.

Anderson said the utility's shift away from coal for electricity is driven by reducing greenhouse gases blamed for global climate change.

"Climate change is a big deal," Anderson said Tuesday in a briefing with reporters. "I think it's the policy issue of our era. Certainly for the energy issue, it is the defining policy issue — and I think it's going to be that way for many years to come."

Anderson said DTE executives believe the company "and the country have a responsibility to address" climate change.

"There's no suckers' choice between a healthy environment and a health economy," Anderson said. "We can have both as we attack this problem, as long as we do it in a smart way."

DTE's goal of being coal-free within 23 years comes as President Donald Trump is trying to breath new life into a coal industry that's been in decline as discovery of vast deposits of natural gas have drive down the price of producing electricity with gas.

Trump has decried a perceived "war on coal."

Anderson said Trump's push for helping coal-producing states in Appalachia restart shuttered mines does not change the costly price tag of replacing or repairing aging coal-fired plants.

"A new administration can’t turn a 70-year-old coal plant into a 20-year-old coal plant,” Anderson said. “... We’re not announcing this to try in the face of what’s being described or discussed in Washington. We’re just describing what we think is apparent to us.”

DTE has set a goal of producing 40 percent of its electricity from wind, solar, biomass and hydro electric dams. In 2016, DTE generated 6 percent of its electricity from wind turbines and 4 percent from other forms of renewable energy.

"The transition is already well under way," Anderson said.

Michigan lawmakers updated the state's energy laws last year, calling for DTE Energy and Consumers Energy to generate or purchase 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2021. That law increased the previous renewable energy standard of 10 percent and calls for 35 percent of the state's energy come from waste reduction and renewables by 2025.

Anderson said his company's $15 billion investment plan can be paid for by rate increases that are kept within the rate of inflation that will be subject to approval by the Michigan Public Service Commission.

"It can be done so the rate growth works," he said.

The majority of DTE's expanded renewable energy portfolio will be in wind turbine generation, particularly in mid-Michigan where wind farms have been more welcomed than in the Thumb and other parts of the state.

"Wind continues to be substantially cheaper," Anderson said.

DTE recently built a 250-acre solar array with 200,000 panels in Lapeer that began generating electricity last week.

"We're going to push into solar, but it's going to be a minority player until its economics cross over with wind," Anderson said.

Since 2009, DTE has added 1,000 megawatts of electricity generation from renewable sources. The plan announced Tuesday calls for an additional 6,000 megawatts from renewable sources by 2040.

By the early 2020s, DTE plans to retire coal-burning plants in River Rouge, Trenton Channel and St. Clair as it transitions to a new 3,500-megawatt natural gas plant that's in the planning stages.

The last coal plant in Monroe should be shuttered by 2040, Anderson said.

Under DTE's long-term planning, 40 percent of electricity by 2040 would come from renewable sources, 40 percent from natural gas and the remaining 20 percent would come from the utility's Fermi II nuclear power plant on Lake Erie north of Monroe.

Late last year, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed DTE's license for Fermi II through 2045. The nuclear plant came online in 1988.

"It could conceivably seek another license renewal after that," Anderson said.

The goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent starts with a baseline year of 2005, the national standard for tracking reduction in pollution, Anderson said.

DTE Energy and Consumers Energy control 90 percent of Michigan's electricity market through a government-regulated system that allows limited "choice" from outside suppliers. The two utilities fought efforts in the Legislature last year to expanded the choice program beyond 10 percent.

Consumers Energy is in the process of setting new "sustainability and environmental goals," but the Jackson-based utility not set new targets for renewable energy production, spokeswoman Katie Carey said.

“We, too, believe Michigan is looking at a cleaner and leaner future, which includes more renewable energy, more energy efficiency and more natural gas," Carey said in a statement. "In 2016 alone, we retired more coal generation than other investor-owned utility in the nation.”