We were just reading Amy Sisk's article at the Bismarck Tribune, Coal Creek power plant looking for solutions to financial woes, when a friend at Montevideo's grassroots environmental and energy organization CURE contacted us about a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Minnesota Electric Cooperatives and Out-of-State Coal Plants.
The post introducing the report on the UCS website states:
Electric cooperatives (“co-ops”) serve about one-third of Minnesota customers. While many coal-fired power plants located within the state have been retired or are slated to retire, Minnesota co-ops are tied to memberships with larger co-op entities that own coal plants elsewhere and that they intend to continue operating far into the future.
Many of these coal plants run for extended periods when cheaper resources are available and have long-term fuel contracts for coal supply. Meanwhile, existing power supply contracts restrict local Minnesota co-ops' ability to pursue alternative resources, such as renewable energy.
To allow full clean energy benefits to flow to Minnesota co-ops, policymakers and stakeholders must continue exploring solutions to help facilitate coal plant retirements and increased use of clean resources.
The report cites work by CURE in its list of sources; we embedded Rural Electrification 2.0: The Transition to a Clean Energy Economy in our post CURE & allies' report: Rural electric coops’ loyalty to coal holds rural America back.
Here's the UCS report:
UCS Issue Brief - Minnesota Electric Cooperatives and Out-Of-State Coal Plants uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists' About page:
The Union of Concerned Scientists is a national nonprofit organization founded more than 50 years ago by scientists and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Our mission: to use rigorous, independent science to solve our planet's most pressing problems. Joining with people across the country, we combine technical analysis and effective advocacy to create innovative, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.
Today, we are a group of nearly 250 scientists, analysts, policy and communication experts dedicated to that purpose.
According to the UCS report, much of Great River Energy (a Generation & Transmission (G&T) co-op) power comes from Coal Creek on a contract that lasts through 2045. Here's the rub:
Coal plants can often operate uneconomically, as owners can require their coal-fired power plants to run at times when it would be cheaper to purchase power from the market instead. This is especially true of plants owned by entities that can pass the costs on to their customers, including vertically integrated utilities and public power utilities such as electric power co-ops (Daniel 2018).
According to 2017 Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) research on coal plant operations, plants owned by the G&T co-ops discussed here operate for extended periods when cheaper resources are available, resulting in excess costs to customers, referenced in Table 2 as the customer burden from overgeneration.
As low natural gas prices and cheaper renewables continue to put pressure on wholesale market prices, the plants are likely to further burden customers when operated uneconomically. The G&T co-ops could therefore adjust the way the plants are offered into wholesale markets instead of “must running” them year-round—by not running the plants as often (or retiring them) and replacing the electricity with renewables, efficiency, and market purchases.
According to Table 2 (page 3 in the embedded report above), the Overgeneration in 2015–2017 by Coal Creek cost Great River's customers $21 Million.
Photo: An aerial view of Great River Energy's Coal Creek Station near Underwood, via the Bismarck Tribune.
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