(Bloomberg) -- The Golden State is increasingly inhospitable to fossil-fuel power plants.
In the latest development, NRG Energy Inc. plans to shutter three old gas-fired power plants in California, according to a Sierra Club statement Friday. The plants are operated by the company's GenOn unit, which is expected to be spun off under a bankruptcy agreement that was approved last year.
GenOn intends to shut down the Etiwanda plant in Rancho Cucamonga as of June 1. The Ormond Beach facility in Oxnard is slated to go dark as of Oct. 1 and the Ellwood site in Goleta is set to close as of Jan. 1 of next year. An NRG spokeswoman declined to comment Friday.
California regulators are pushing utilities to ditch gas-fired power plants for clean-energy projects amid a state-wide effort to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions in half by 2030 from 2015 levels. In January, the California Public Utilities Commission approved an order that requires PG&E Corp., the state's biggest utility, to change the way it supplies power when demand peaks, by using batteries or other non-fossil fuel resources.
“Closing these plants is more proof that clean energy is driving gas out of California,” Evan Gillespie, a Sierra Club campaign manager, said in the statement.
--With assistance from Mark Chediak
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Eckhouse in New York at beckhouse@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Will Wade, Joe Richter
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