The Colorado Public Utilities Commission tabled a request by Xcel Energy to shorten the operating life of the Comanche power station’s Unit 3 near Pueblo, the last of three generating units built at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion, and shut it down by 2034.

Following a long series of proceedings starting in 2016 and extending to Xcel’s 2021 Electrical Resource Plan, which it must update every four years, an agreement was struck among those formally involved in the case to shut down the Comanche 3 unit by 2040 to meet Xcel’s clean energy targets of an 87% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.

In a hearing on March 14, the commission postponed a decision on the new request by Xcel to further cut the plant’s operating life.

“We are hopeful the commission will give serious consideration to the interrelated parts of the settlement, and we are concerned that significant changes to the proposed plan will lead to uncertainty and unanticipated issues for our customers, communities and developers,” Michelle Aguayo, a spokeswoman for Xcel Energy, said in a statement.

State energy regulators are considering the proposal to shut the plant down decades earlier than its useful life at a time of soaring energy bills primarily driven by wild fluctuations in natural gas prices, record-setting inflation and global uncertainty following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Comanche 3 generating unit went into service in 2010 after five years of construction. At the time the first new coal-fired electric generating station built in Colorado in nearly 30 years, it was projected to be operating until 2070.

The design included advanced emission controls that reduced sulphur dioxide by 65% and nitrogen oxide by 30% while doubling overall generating capacity. The advanced system also uses about half the amount of water normally required.

The Comanche Station units 1 and 2 were commissioned in 1973 and 1975 and are scheduled to shut down in 2022 and 2025, after some 55 years of operation.

Aguayo told The Denver Gazette that the Comanche 1 and 2 units remain online, and Xcel is on schedule for their decommissioning.

As part of its 2021 case, Xcel asked for permission to keep track of and defer the costs it faces for “preparing and litigating this proceeding” so that it can ask the the commission for permission to charge ratepayers “in a future rate proceeding,” rather than absorbing those costs.

Xcel also asked the commission to “recognize the financial implications of adding stand-alone battery storage resources in this ERP and accordingly authorize future rate base inclusion of capital leases as necessary to effectuate the acquisition of certain stand-alone battery resources.”

In addition, it asked the commission to authorize “a certain ratemaking treatment” to pay to investigate “the feasibility of certain long-lead time generation resources to achieve carbon reductions beyond 2030 and for associated costs.”

It appears that Xcel wants Colorado ratepayers to pay for the company to look at other resources, such as small modular nuclear reactors, something the Colorado Energy Office shows little interest in.

Xcel is vying to operate a small modular reactor station being planned by a consortium of Utah communities to be built in Idaho.

The primary motivator for this 2021 rate case and coal plant closures is Gov. Jared Polis’ determination to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and sweeping new laws enacted in 2021 by state lawmakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide. Supporters of the move away from fossil fuel have argued that, while painful, the transition would result in cleaner forms of energy that would help slow or stop climate change and wean the U.S. from foreign-based energy sources. Critics, however, say the transition to alternative forms of energy is a costly and unnecessary experiment, with some Coloradans bearing the brunt more so than others.                 

“There is no dispute that Comanche units 1 and 2 plants are currently in compliance with emissions regulations and are fully operational,” the commission said in its decision to approve the 2021 Clean Energy Plan. “By retiring Comanche units 1 and 2 in 2022 and 2025, however, Public Service will have essentially mitigated its coal plant emissions across its generation fleet.”

“Having ‘always available’ energy sources is necessary to safeguard reliability as we add unprecedented levels of wind and solar in the next decade,” said Aguayo. “Setting plant closure dates must be carefully considered to ensure we can continue to serve customers reliably through this Clean Energy Plan transition, which is the centerpiece to accomplishing the state’s greenhouse gas reduction targets.”

The Comanche 3 unit has been offline since January 28 due to a “transmission event” that damaged the generator.

“Repairs are moving forward at Comanche 3, and we anticipate the majority of repairs underway should be completed soon,” said Aguayo. “We are waiting for a key piece of equipment to be manufactured and only a handful of places in the world can produce them.”

Aguayo said insurance will pay for the repairs and Xcel will “absorb the incremental replacement power costs,” meaning ratepayers will not have to bear the burden of Xcel having to buy more expensive power during the outage.