The group’s Beyond Coal campaign has a top goal of moving the country beyond the resource by 2030, and the retirement by 2017 of the largest coal-fired complex in the northeast US serves as a milestone in that effort, according to officials.

According to the club’s Clean Air Task Force, the 150 plant retirements will aid in saving 4000 lives annually, help to prevent 6200 heart attacks every year and also prevent 66,300 asthma attacks.

Retiring the plants will also negate $US1.9 ($A2) billion in health costs, the Sierra Club said.

“The closure of the Brayton Point Power Station is a powerful example of how local action can have a global impact,” New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said on behalf of the group.

“Over the last three years, action by individual communities - in partnership with the Sierra Club and Bloomberg Philanthropies – has led to the closure of 150 coal plants, one at a time.

“We will continue to support those who are on the ground working to close the nation's dirty coal plants, which kill 13,000 Americans every year and threaten the future of our planet.”

New England Beyond Coal representative James McCaffery said the New England region was leading the nation in a transition away from coal.

Private equity firm Energy Capital Partners, which recently purchased the Brayton Point complex in Somerset from Dominion, said it would shut the facility down because it was not able to secure an agreement with regional power grid operator ISO-New England.

Brayton Point, the largest power plant burning coal in the six New England states, supplied power to 1.5 million homes at peak capacity.

“We understand the impacts that this decision to retire Brayton Point Station will have on the employees of Brayton Point, local community and other stakeholders,” ECP president and CEO Curt Morgan said.