The Three Latest-Retiring US Coal Generators Are All Evergy Units in Kansas and Missouri

USE CASE. Decarbonization modelers (NREL, EIA AEO, ICF, BloombergNEF, RFF), state public utility commissions, RTO/ISO long-term planners, and climate policy advocates need to know two things about the US coal exit: (a) the upper-bound retirement schedule (the 'last unit to fall'), which determines when carbon-free generation must be ready to replace it, and (b) the share of operating coal that has no end date filed at all, which is the part of the fleet most vulnerable to schedule slippage. EIA publishes the underlying file monthly but does not flag these specific cuts. RESULT. Of the 450 operating coal generators in the February 2026 EIA-860M release, only 92 carry a planned retirement date filed with EIA. The three units with the latest planned retirement (December 2039) are: (1) La Cygne Unit 2, Linn County KS, 666.5 MW, Evergy Metro; (2) Iatan Unit 1, Platte County MO, 716.7 MW, Evergy Metro; (3) Jeffrey Energy Center Unit 1, Pottawatomie County KS, 725.2 MW, Evergy Kansas Central. All three are owned by Evergy, the holding company formed by the 2018 Westar Energy / Kansas City Power & Light merger. The next-latest retirement is December 2034 (Marshall NC Unit 2, 370 MW, Duke Energy Carolinas), then a cluster at December 2033 (eight Shawnee KY units owned by TVA, 134 MW each). The retirement schedule by 5-year bucket: 59 units in 2025-2029, 30 units in 2030-2034, 3 units in 2035-2039. STRUCTURAL CONCENTRATION. Every coal generator with a planned retirement date in or beyond 2035 is owned by Evergy and located in the Kansas/Missouri border area. The other 358 of 450 operating coal generators do not have any planned retirement date filed with EIA — they are operating with no published end date. The five states with the most operating coal generators by unit count are Indiana 33 / Kentucky 27 / Tennessee 27 / Texas 25 / Wyoming 25; by net summer capacity Texas leads (15.6 GW) followed by Indiana (12.7 GW) and West Virginia (12.5 GW). CAVEATS. (1) 'Planned retirement date' in EIA-860M reflects the operator's most-recently-filed plan as of the February 2026 release; it is not a regulatory commitment and changes month-to-month as state IRPs are updated. (2) The Evergy 2039 dates trace back to Evergy's 2021 Integrated Resource Plan and are documented in Wikipedia and Global Energy Monitor coverage; this analysis confirms that the 2021 dates remain in the EIA file as of February 2026 and that no other operator has filed a later date in the intervening four years. (3) The 79.6% no-retirement-date share is the upper bound on 'unscheduled' coal because some operators have stated retirement intent in IRPs but not yet filed it on the EIA-860 form.

EIA, the federal energy statistics agency, publishes a monthly file listing every electric power plant in the country with its current status and any planned changes. I downloaded the February 2026 release this morning and asked: of the coal-fired generators that are still running, which ones have the latest planned retirement date? There are 450 coal generators still operating in the US. Only 92 of them have any planned retirement date filed with EIA at all — the other 358 (about 80%) are operating with no published end date. Of the 92 with dates, the three with the latest scheduled retirement (December 2039) are all owned by the same company: Evergy, the utility serving most of Kansas and western Missouri. The three units are La Cygne 2 (Kansas), Iatan 1 (Missouri), and Jeffrey Energy Center 1 (Kansas). The next-latest is a Duke Energy unit in North Carolina retiring in December 2034, five years earlier. So the federal upper bound on 'when does the last US coal plant come offline?' is currently December 2039, and that ceiling is set by three units in Kansas/Missouri owned by one company. That matters for two reasons. First, decarbonization modelers who project when carbon-free generation has to be ready to fully replace coal need to plan around the Evergy 2039 dates specifically. Second, the 80% of coal generators with no planned retirement date is a much larger and softer number than the 'managed wind-down' headlines suggest — most of the operating coal fleet in the US is still operating with no published end date. The Evergy 2039 dates are also documented in Evergy's 2021 Integrated Resource Plan and Global Energy Monitor coverage; this analysis just confirms that they are still in the federal file in February 2026 and that no other operator has filed a later date.

La Cygne Unit 2, KS, 666.5 MW, Evergy Metro — Dec 2039 · Iatan Unit 1, MO, 716.7 MW, Evergy Metro — Dec 2039 · Jeffrey Energy Center Unit 1, KS, 725.2 MW, Evergy Kansas Central — Dec 2039 · Marshall (NC) Unit 2, NC, 370.0 MW, Duke Energy Carolinas — Dec 2034 · Shawnee Unit 1, KY, 134.0 MW, Tennessee Valley Authority — Dec 2033

27,718 operating generators in EIA-860M · 450 coal generators (Energy Source Code BIT/SUB/LIG/ANT/WC/RC/SC/SGC) · 92 of 450 (20.4%) have a planned retirement date · 358 of 450 (79.6%) have NO planned retirement date · retirement schedule by 5-yr bucket: 59 units 2025-29, 30 units 2030-34, 3 units 2035-39 · all 3 units in the 2035-39 bucket are Evergy in KS/MO