Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association will face a major shortage in power-generation capacity over the next decade without a new plant, officials for the utility said Wednesday.
“We need to build some baseload generation,” Mac McLennan, Tri-State’s senior vice president of external relations, told members of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
At current capacity, by 2014 the utility’s electricity generation would fall short of demand by 2,270 gigawatt hours, electricity it would then need to purchase at high prices from other utilities.
Tri-State sold 13,500 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2007, spokesman Jim Van Someren said.
Tri-State is the state’s second-largest electric utility, serving nearly 900,000 customers in Colorado. It is a nonprofit wholesale power supplier owned by 44 member systems in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and New Mexico.
Unlike Xcel, the state’s largest power provider, Tri-State is not regulated by the PUC but voluntarily submits information to the commission.
Tri-State’s power plants are all on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, and it is limited in its ability to transmit electricity to its customers on the eastern side. The utility suffered a setback last year when regulators in Kansas rejected its plans for two new coal-fired power plants near Holcomb, Kan.
Tri-State is appealing that decision. It has bought property near Holly for a planned power plant that could run on coal, nuclear power or natural gas. It also has pledged to generate 10 percent of its power from renewable sources.
Tri-State officials fielded questions Wednesday from commissioners on their renewable-energy plans. Environmentalists who attended the meeting criticized the utility for its reliance on coal.
“Tri-State’s service territory contains some of the best wind and solar resources of any area in the country,” said John Niel sen, energy-program director at Western Resource Advocates. “Unfortunately, Tri-state’s resource plan still relies heavily on old-style coal plants to meet new energy demands.”
Greg Griffin: 303-954-1241 or ggriffin@denverpost.com
