Big Rivers Electric Corp. was formed in 1961 to supply power to three cooperatives, from left, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative (orange), Kenergy Corp. (gray) and Meade County Rural Electric Cooperative Corp. (blue). (Source: Big Rivers Electric Corp.)
An electric utility serving Western Kentucky counties is telling the state regulator it anticipates keeping its existing coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants open beyond 2050, a projection amid state and federal efforts seeking to boost fossil fuel-fired power.
On Tuesday, Owensboro-based Big Rivers Electric Corporation filed a new integrated resource plan before the Kentucky Public Service Commission, detailing the utility’s future plans for power plants, electricity transmission infrastructure and the direction of its future electricity demand.
Such plans are required to be filed by Kentucky electric utilities before the commission every few years, detailing how the utility will provide an “adequate and reliable” supply of electricity to meet future consumer and industrial demands at the “lowest possible cost” generally at least over a 15-year outlook.
Big Rivers Electric Corporation’s newest plan projects a future where, instead of retiring and replacing its existing fossil fuel-fired fleet, it instead makes “reliability” investments into its 40-year-old coal-fired D.B. Wilson Generating Station in Ohio County and its natural gas-fired turbines at its Robert D. Green Generating Station in Webster County.
The utility wrote that “preserving and improving the existing dispatchable fleet produces lower-cost portfolios and stronger reliability and resilience than retirement and replacement strategies.”
The utility, which also receives solar power and hydropower through contracts, said it would add additional renewables as it was “economically justified.”
The plans also provide a window into the decision-making process of utilities amid a sea change of federal regulation of coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants. The Biden administration had sought to force such plants, particularly coal-fired power plants, to cut down on pollution including nearly all of climate-warning greenhouse gas emissions.
The Trump administration within the past two years has now moved to reverse the Biden-era power plant rules including weakening rules on toxic air pollution and repealing limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The administration has praised the rollbacks as steps to stop past Democratic-led efforts to “destroy” coal and natural gas. The New York Times reported last month an industry group for coal-fired power plants pitched the idea of using emergency powers to keep coal-fired power plants operating to the Trump administration.
An attorney with the environmental legal group Kentucky Resources Council who is familiar with Big Rivers Electric Corporation’s past utility plans told the Kentucky Lantern he’s heard from utilities in the past that the uncertainty, from administration to administration, of what fossil fuel and energy regulation will look like in the future is costly.
“Uncertainty drives costs up. They can’t plan for a future where they don’t know what they’re going to have to do,” Gary said, who’s been critical of Trump-era regulatory rollbacks.
In an emailed statement Wednesday afternoon, Big Rivers Electric Corporation spokesperson Stephanie McCombs said the utility doesn’t comment on active cases before the PSC. The state regulator will eventually issue a report that analyzes and critiques Big Rivers’ plan.
While not the preferred outlook chosen by the utility, Big Rivers did model a scenario under which “increasingly stringent carbon regulations drive significant reductions in U.S. power sector emissions.” Under that scenario, the Wilson plant would be retired in 2032 and the utility would invest in 800 megawatts of wind power, 400 megawatts of natural gas-fired power and 200 megawatts of battery storage.
The utility wrote that given Trump administration repeals of greenhouse gas emission rules are being litigated, the “long-term regulatory outlook remains uncertain” and “future carbon regulation remains a plausible risk”.
But the utility also highlighted the role that laws passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature play in making it significantly harder for utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants.
Gary, whose group has also been critical of the state laws, said it limits utilities’ ability to choose a “least-cost option” for ratepayers while meeting electricity grid reliability requirements. State lawmakers have defended the laws as ensuring state energy policy is “driven by facts, reliability, and long-term competitiveness.”
“How do you plan for an uncertain future where you also know that you have a limited choice of options due to state law makes it very difficult, I can imagine, for planners?” Gary said.
The utility also noted in its plans that there’s been significant interest from prospective data center developers seeking power and electricity infrastructure. The utility has received 31 inquiries from data center customers, but only five of those inquiries have advanced beyond “initial stages.”
Two of those five projects are a planned hyperscale data center at a former aluminum mill in Hancock County and a planned hyperscale data center at the federally-owned Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in McCracken County. Three other projects are “confidential development prospects” that “have not progressed beyond preliminary evaluation.”
Courtesy of Kentucky Lantern
