WASHINGTON (WHTC-AM/FM, Nov. 20, 2025) – The JH Campbell Generating Plant won’t be closing anytime soon.
That’s the sentiment of US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who issued an order to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator on Tuesday evening keeping the 1,500-watt, coal-fired facility in Port Sheldon Township open through February 17th. Consumers Energy, which owns and operates the plant, had planned to shutter it this past May 31st, which was 15 years before the end of the facility’s scheduled design life.
Wright issued the first such order 10 days before that closing date, citing possible power shortages in the region, and extended that initial order in August. This latest extension came six hours before that second order would have expired. The secretary said in this latest decree that the emergency conditions which led to the initial order would continue in the near and long term until alternative energy-generating sources are put into place.
Consumers Energy had targeted the Campbell closure in complying with Governor Whitmer’s goal of ending coal-fired energy generation by 2040. Efforts to overturn Wright’s earlier orders by the Whitmer administration, led by Attorney General Dana Nessel, have proven unsuccessful thus far. The utility claims that expenses in complying with this order has led it to ask MISO to spread cost recovery among all regional electric grid customers.
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