The planned pollution controls on Xcel Energy’s coal-fired Pawnee Generating Station could reach more than $300 million, according to testimony at a Colorado Public Utilities Commission hearing today.
Xcel has estimated that the cost of the controls — which are part of a comprehensive plan to cut air emissions on the Front Range — at $238.6 million.
Under questioning from Michelle King, an attorney representing business customers and independent power producers, Robin Kittel, an Xcel executive, clarified that that figure was an estimate.
The price could vary up or down by 20 percent and in addition there was another variation of about 9 percent for contingencies.
The compressed time frame of meeting requirements of the state’s Clean Air Clean Jobs Act — which requires closing some coal-fired plants and cutting emissions are others — has made getting firm figures a challenge, Kittel said.
The act was passed in December 2010 and the controls must be on the Pawnee plant by 2014.
“We haven’t bought equipment,” Kittel said. “We haven’t signed a contract.”
Xcel is closing six coal-fired units under the act, but is seeking to add pollution controls at Pawnee, which went into service in 1981.
“For a coal plant it is in mid-life,” said Mark Stutz, an Xcel spokesman.
Under the act Xcel will be eligible for accelerated cost recovery for its investments.
The decision not to close Pawnee and extend its life to the middle of the century has drawn protests from some environmental groups.
“At a time when old coal plants are closing across the country, this is the wrong move,” said Diana Best, of Greenpeace. “We ought to be moving away from coal as quickly as possible.”
The Sierra Club and Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates, however, are both supporting the move.
“This is part of a complex plant to cut pollution,” said John Nielsen, Western Resource energy-program director Advocates.
The reason for the PUC review is to make sure the costs are appropriate, said Travis Ritchie, an attorney for the Sierra Club. “We just want to make sure the numbers are right,” he said.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or MJaffe@denverpost.com
