Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association should embrace more renewable energy and efficiency programs after its effort to build a coal-fired plant in Kansas was rejected by regulators last month, according to a report released Monday.
Commissioned by Boulder-based conservation group Western Resource Advocates and conducted by Summit Blue Consulting, the report encourages Tri-State’s board of directors to diversify the company’s resources and consider more clean-energy technologies.
Westminster-based Tri-State’s board meets today for the first time since the Kansas Department of Health and Environment denied plans for a 700-megawatt plant in Holcomb, Kan., concerned about carbon-dioxide emissions.
Tri-State’s partner on the project, Sunflower Electric, filed an appeal Nov. 1 for reconsideration of the ruling, said Tri-State spokesman Jim Van Someren.
Van Someren said the board will review other legal options during its monthly meeting today and tomorrow.
The plant was to be the cornerstone of plans to handle growth among the 44 power cooperatives that Tri-State supplies in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and New Mexico.
“Regardless of what happens at Holcomb, we’ve got plans to bolster our renewable resources,” Van Someren said.
He noted that the company will solicit proposals by the end of the year for up to 50 megawatts of renewable power.
The Summit Blue Consulting report, which analyzed Tri-State’s resource plan, said Tri-State may be overestimating future power demand, which could unnecessarily raise costs for consumers.
Summit Blue found that Tri-State uses a high-growth scenario and a 15 percent reserve margin to create an extra layer of “padding” in estimating future needs for electricity.
“The resulting estimate increases the possibility that too much capacity is built to meet the expected demand, which increases the cost to customers,” the report states.
Van Someren said Tri-State has to plan years into the future and ensure that it will have sufficient resources.
“Load forecasting is not an exact science,” Van Someren said.
Summit Blue recommended that Tri-State invest in more energy efficiency to delay the need for new coal-fired power, develop better relationships with member cooperatives, use more wind power, make gas-fired plants more efficient and explore technologies such as coal-gasification with carbon capture and sequestration.
“We are doing the majority of those things,” Van Someren said.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
