Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association will meet with regulators Wednesday in an unprecedented hearing to discuss the utility’s power- generation plans.
It will be the first such hearing for the state’s second-largest electric utility since the Colorado Public Utilities Commission implemented resource- planning rules in 1992, said PUC spokesman Terry Bote.
PUC commissioners said in an order that since Tri-State filed its most recent resource plan in November, “many changes in the electric industry have taken place that have prompted our interest in holding a hearing to discuss these matters.”
Regulators highlighted several topics they want to address in the hearing. They include:
• The utility’s backup plan for a proposed coal-fired plant in Kansas that is in jeopardy because the state denied its air-permit application over carbon- dioxide concerns.
• How the utility will respond to climate-change regulation and how that is reflected in its resource plan.
• Where the utility sees itself in 10 years in terms of generation sources, transmission lines and energy-efficiency programs.
Unlike Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest utility, Tri-State is not rate-regulated by the PUC. Tri-State sells wholesale power to its rural electric cooperatives. The PUC oversees only the construction of new plants or transmission lines by Tri-State in Colorado.
Tri-State’s 44 member cooperatives serve 1.4 million people, with 62 percent in Colorado.
Environmentalists and some member co-ops have criticized the utility for its heavy reliance on coal and its slow embrace of renewable energy. Coal-fired power plants generate 70 percent of Tri-State’s power.
Tri-State spokesman Jim Van Someren noted, among other efforts, that the utility was among the first organizations to join the Climate Registry, a nonprofit partnership focused on providing measurements of greenhouse- gas emissions.
The hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the PUC office in Denver.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
