Some utilities in other states are being required to pay a portion of those costs out of the profits they earn providing power, rather than passing the costs along to the general public.With approximately 1.5 million customers in the state, that means Alabama Power earned just over $825 per customer in profit in 2021.
“These experts evaluated both closure options for each of our sites and identified closure in place as the more favorable option to comply with the 2015 Coal Combustion Rule.” Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Alabama’s plan to cover those ash ponds in place did not do enough to stop groundwater pollution.
“In the Alabama Power case, shareholders, theoretically, could be forced to pay some or all of the costs,” Tait said.“We don’t anticipate the Public Service Commission doing anything but giving Alabama Power what it wants,” Tait said. “But theoretically it could hold the company accountable if it really wanted to.”Some states have intervened to shield customers from paying for the full cost of coal ash cleanups, while others have not.
While the total costs of coal ash cleanup are high, those estimates have been shown to vary widely, and the costs don’t come up all at once.