August 17, 2026 | Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response — DOE Order No. 202-26-39
DOE Keeps a Retired Coal Plant Alive in MISO for the Third Time This Year
On August 14, DOE issued emergency Order No. 202-26-39 under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, directing MISO — in coordination with Consumers Energy — to keep the coal-fired J.H. Campbell Generating Plant in West Olive, Michigan available to operate.
The order takes effect today, August 17, and runs through November 14. MISO is also directed to employ economic dispatch on the unit to minimize costs to ratepayers.
Campbell was originally slated to retire on May 31, 2025 — fifteen years before the end of its scheduled design life. This is now the third consecutive 202(c) order DOE has issued to keep it running in 2026, following orders in February (No. 202-26-16) and May (No. 202-26-22).
What Three Renewals in Six Months Tells Operators
One 202(c) order can be a one-time bridge. Three in a row, each timed to start right as the last one expires, is a pattern — and it says more about the underlying margin than about one plant.
For reliability coordinators and transmission planners working the MISO Zone 7 / Lower Michigan footprint, this points to a resource adequacy gap that new interconnection queue capacity hasn't closed yet.
For compliance and generation-owner teams, every renewal resets the clock. Dispatch instructions, cost-minimization reporting, and coordination logs with Consumers Energy all need to be current for this new order window — referencing back to the February filing won't cut it in an audit.
EPG Solutions Can Help
Repeat 202(c) orders are exactly the kind of signal that gets lost in day-to-day operations but matters enormously for IRP assumptions, retirement timing, and peer benchmarking. EPG Solutions' proprietary benchmark intelligence reports track resource adequacy and retirement-risk patterns like this across utilities, so your planning team isn't caught flat-footed by the next order.