The coal-fired power plant that environmental groups once called New England’s worst air polluter shut down forever at midnight on Wednesday.

Brayton Point Power Station, the last coal-powered electrical generating plant in Massachusetts, doused its fires and was placed in retirement.

At its peak, the plant generated 1,488 megawatts of electricity and, along with also soon-to-close Pilgrim Nuclear (2,200 megawatts), was among the region’s largest sources of power.

Plans for the property remain unclear, although at least one group envisions a new power use for some of the site at the head of Mount Hope Bay.

The same week that the plant was burning off the last of the 500,000-ton coal pile that had been shipped up the bay on board the Energy Independence coal vessel, two other ships were working off Sakonnet Point.

Those vessels are mapping the sea bed for a cable route to carry electricity from a possible major wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard north via the Sakonnet River, Tiverton Basin and Mount Hope Bay to Brayton Point.

The closure of the Brayton Point Power Station makes that a logical destination, said Lauren Brum, spokeswoman for Dong Energy, the Denmark-based developer of wind farms and other energy projects..

Upon retirement of the power plant, “roughly 1,000 MW of interconnection capability is expected to become available there, without significant system upgrade costs to interconnect.”

Although President Trump has touted a big revival for the coal industry and coal-powered electric plants, the decision to close Brayton Point is irreversible,” said David Onufer, a spokesman for plant owner Dynegy Inc. of Houston.

We’re removing all of the combustible energy sources, he told the Fall River Herald. “Operations will discontinue.”

Coal plants across the country are meeting a similar fate — the owners are also shutting down their coal plants in Ohio; another such plant just up the Taunton River closed a decade ago.

Although the plant was the focus of protests by environmental groups for its air pollution, ultimately it was the fiscal bottom line that doomed the plant. Lowering costs of competition from natural gas, low electricity prices, and the upkeep costs of the half-century-plus old facility have been cited for the decision to shut it down.

Up next, he said, are a couple months of decommissioning work to leave the inactive plant and property safe and secure. A skeleton crew of fewer than 20 workers remain from a workforce that once numbered over 100.

Twin towers’ fate unclear

Plant owners have announced no plans yet for a new use of the property and said that the company is not seeking to convert it for burning another sort of fuel such as natural gas.

And the company has not announced what will become of the massive generating plant and the large twin cooling towers built late in the power station’s life.

Those 500-foot towers, which dominate the view from every direction, were built after it was revealed that the power plants use of Mount Hope Bay water for cooling was killing fish and other sea life in the bay — much of the bay was described as a “dead zone.”

Those towers cost Brayton Point $620 million to build and, the company said, were successful in lowering bay temperatures.