Coal-fired units in West Virginia now have a spending commitment that runs to 2050. On Thursday, Nov. 12, Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced in Charleston that Appalachian Power has set aside $7.5 billion to upgrade its existing coal-fired plants in the state, a sum kept apart from a $17 billion gas buildout unveiled at the same event.
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Morrisey cast the coal money as a contrast with other states. In his telling, neighboring jurisdictions are shrinking their output and closing dependable stations, and West Virginia is doing the opposite.
A $7.5 billion commitment with a 2050 end date
The governor’s office describes the coal spending as a separate commitment to upgrade existing plants through 2050, which is a 24-year runway from the announcement date, longer than the 2040 horizon regulators endorsed in 2021. West Virginia Public Broadcasting reports it as upgrades to Appalachian Power’s West Virginia coal-fired plants, and POWER Magazine’s account uses nearly the same words. WDTV combines it with the gas money for a $24.5 billion total.
Unlike the gas half, the coal half arrives without capacity or jobs numbers. The release ties its 2,050 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs to the gas plants only, and none of the coverage says how many megawatts of coal capacity the money touches or what kind of work it buys, whether emissions controls, ash handling, boiler overhauls or something else. The gas side carries a 2031 completion date; the coal side carries only the 2050 end point, with no interim milestones reported.
Amos, Mountaineer and the 2021 order to run to 2040
Context for what a coal upgrade program can look like comes from an earlier ruling. On Oct. 13, 2021, the Public Service Commission of West Virginia approved continued operation of three American Electric Power coal plants through at least 2040, as POWER Magazine reported at the time. Amos, rated at 2,930 megawatts in Putnam County, and Mountaineer, at 1,320 megawatts in Mason County, belong to Appalachian Power; Mitchell, in Marshall County, belongs to sister company Wheeling Power.
That order was about environmental compliance. The commission put the cost of bringing the three plants into line with federal rules at about $448.3 million and estimated that retiring them early would cost West Virginia customers between $1.9 billion and $2.3 billion. Power Engineering’s coverage adds that the utilities had to file separate cost-recovery requests, and that Virginia and Kentucky regulators declined to approve the same upgrades.
Nothing published about the Nov. 12 plan says it funds those specific units or extends the 2040 horizon, and the 2021 figures are a different, far smaller package. They are useful mainly as a scale marker: the new coal figure is more than 16 times the compliance bill the commission reviewed five years ago.
The 2021 order also shows what the commission valued. It said the continued operation of the plants brings economic benefits to the state that are considerable, and a filing from Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power noted that Mountaineer would need to address groundwater impacts tied to its existing bottom ash pond. Compliance work of that kind, tied to federal rules on wastewater and coal ash, is the sort of spending the 2021 case centered on.
Plants, approvals and bills the announcement leaves unnamed
Three questions remain open in the public record. First, which plants. The release as carried by WCHS-TV and the other outlets names no coal station; John Amos appears only as a size comparison for the gas announcement, which the release says is bigger than the roughly 2.9-gigawatt Amos project of the early 1970s.
Second, who signs off. None of the reports read for this article mentions a Public Service Commission filing, and no Appalachian Power executive is quoted in any of them. The plan reaches the public through the governor’s office, which is the party making the claim, so the commitment is best read as a stated intention still awaiting its regulatory paperwork.
The coal money also sits inside a bigger political frame. It counts toward the 50 by 50 initiative, launched in September 2025, which sets a goal of 50 gigawatts of generation capacity by 2050, the same year the coal commitment ends. The governor’s office says 11.67 gigawatts has been announced to date, a little over a third of the new capacity the goal requires, along with $113.6 billion in private-sector investment and 21,030 projected jobs since October 2025.
Third, what customers pay. Morrisey’s ratepayer pledge keeps the new projects’ build costs away from current household and business accounts, and his office adds that prices will not rise as a result. Whether work on aging coal units falls inside that pledge, or is recovered through rates as the 2021 compliance work was designed to, is the number to watch when a filing appears. Until a utility filing or commission docket supplies a dollar figure, that question stays open.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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