PRPA sets schedule for decommissioning coal plants
FORT COLLINS — The Platte River Power Authority has yet to complete it’s integrated resource plan, but its board has decided to take one option off the table.
The wholesale electrical power utility will shut down Rawhide Unit 1, it’s coal-fired workhorse, by 2030. All coal-fired power, including from the Craig-based power plant, will cease operations at the same time.
Platte River’s Board committed in 2018 to move toward 100% noncarbon energy sources. The question that followed was how to accomplish that goal.
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Options under consideration included shutting down Unit 1, which began to produce electricity in 1984, on various timetables depending on how quickly solar, wind and other renewable sources of power could be brought on line. While those plans have yet to be solidified, the board this week decided to commit to the 2030 shutdown of its primary coal-fired unit.
“Together with our owner communities, we are taking the next steps toward our energy future,” said Jason Frisbie, general manager and CEO of Platte River. “Although circumstances associated with the coronavirus prevent us from making this announcement in alignment with our current IRP process, we need to continue moving forward to reach our Resource Diversification Policy’s 100% noncarbon goal.”
“Rawhide Unit 1 has served us extremely well for the past 36 years,” said Wade Troxell, Platte River Board chair and Fort Collins mayor, “but the time has come for us to move toward a cleaner future with grid modernization and integration while maintaining our core pillars of providing reliable, financially sustainable and environmentally responsible energy and services.”
Construction to build Rawhide Unit 1, on ground northwest of Wellington, began in 1979, and commercial operations started in 1984. It emerged as Platte River’s most-reliable source of low-cost energy for its four owner communities of Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland.
Throughout its life, Unit 1 operated with an equivalent availability factor of 97.28%, running thousands of hours between planned or unplanned outages, delivering energy up to its nameplate capacity, the utility said in announcing the shutdown.
“Unit 1 has outperformed nearly every other coal plant of its type in the nation and that is a testament not only to its design but also to the people who run it,” Frisbie said. “It performs so well because all of the 100 skilled professionals who work there take a great deal of pride in the facility and in the jobs they do.”
By the end of 2020, more than 50% of the energy delivered by Platte River will come from noncarbon resources, including wind, solar and hydro facilities. Prior to the decision, Rawhide Unit 1 was scheduled to operate until 2046.
In addition to Unit 1, the 4,560-acre Rawhide Energy Station also is home to five natural-gas combustion turbines and a 30-megawatt solar farm, along with another 22 megawatts of solar power (with battery storage) currently under construction. Energy from the 225-megawatt Roundhouse wind farm located in southern Wyoming will be delivered to the Rawhide Energy Station and then to the owner communities.
Workers associated with Rawhide Unit 1 will be reassigned, Frisbie said, to either other generating assets or to decommissioning of the coal operations.
