New York (Platts)--1Apr2011/450 pm EDT/2050 GMT

Progress Energy Carolinas will shut its its 170-MW W.H. Weatherspoon coal-fired plant near Lumberton, North Carolina, this fall, six years ahead of the original schedule, the company said Friday.

New US Environmental Protection Agency Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology regulations "were certainly a factor in our motivation" to shut the plant down early, said Progress spokesman Drew Elliot. Low natural gas prices were another factor.

The three units will be shut after Progress brings its new 600-MW gas-fired plant in Richmond County, North Carolina, online this June.

"It didn't make sense" to keep Weatherspoon operating in light of the new plant and the new rules, Elliot said. If the plant were to keep operating, it would used minimally, he added.

Progress initially proposed shutting the plant in 2017, and last year revised its integrated resource plan to shut it in 2014.

Two of the plant's three units have a capacity of 48 MW and were brought online in 1949 and 1950. A third, 74-MW unit, was brought online in 1952. While there have been operational upgrades over the years, Elliot said no major upgrades have been completed on the plants.

Progress previously said it would retire 30% of its coal fleet, including Weatherspoon, as part of its fleet modernization program.

In its annual North Carolina Clean Smokestacks Act update, filed Friday with the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Progress Energy Carolinas reported that it has cut emissions of nitrogen oxides by 68% and sulfur dioxide by 71% from 2002 levels at its coal-fired power plants in North Carolina. In 2010, Progress successfully met the state's first reduction target for NOx and continued to meet the reduction target for SO2 emissions.

--Pam Russell, newsdesk@platts.com