Testimony on Public Power’s proposed coal plant buy-in: First, get a plan
You may remember that City Council was asked in October to allow Cleveland Public Power to sign long-term participation contracts — essentially, to buy shares — in three new power projects sponsored by AMP-Ohio, the statewide association of municipal electric systems:
- a coal plant now under construction in Illinois (”Prairie State“), in which AMP-Ohio is buying a 23% equity position;
- new hydroelectric generating capacity to be added to existing structures in the Ohio River; and
- a new thousand-megawatt coal plant (”AMPGS”) to be built and operated by AMP-Ohio in Meigs County.
On October 29, Council gave its approval to the first two; CPP is now committed to paying for a 25 megawatt share of the Prairie State plant (for thirty years) and a 50 megawatt share of AMP-Ohio’s new hydro capacity. Council also passed an ordinance approving an 80 to 100 megawatt, fifty year commitment by CPP to the AMPGS project, but with an escape hatch: the AMPGS deal can be called off by Council any time through the end of February.
AMP-Ohio has a “final” feasibility study of AMPGS due for release in February, and Council is now looking for its own consultant to review that study and otherwise check out the deal in more depth before the March 1 opt-out deadline.
I’ve been looking into the AMPGS proposal and its possible impact on CPP since it was first presented in October. Yesterday I put my doubts about it in the form of testimony to a City Council Public Utilities Committee hearing on CPP’s fuel diversity and efficiency plan (the “PURPA II” compliance investigation).
Here’s a short, short version: Buying into this expensive coal-fire plant for the next fifty years is really risky business, especially when CPP has no long-term integrated resource plan. Get the plan first — then decide about the plant.