Southwest Power Pool tells Tri-State it needs electricity from closed unit because of resource adequacy concerns
by Allen Best
Craig No. 1, the coal unit scheduled for retirement in December, will be back in operation today and possible several more days. The resumption of electrical generation was not ordered directly by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, but instead by the Southwest Power Pool.
On Tuesday, SPP cited resources outages and load and intermittent resource uncertainty in telling Tri-State Generation and Transmission, the operator and part owner of the unit, to resume operation today, April 10.
SPP issued the resource advisory for its new west balancing authority, or regional transmission organization, for April 8-14.
Tri-State spokesperson Mark Stutz said the resource advisory issued by SPP is “considered a normal operating condition and does not represent any imminent threat to reliability. It does not require any action on behalf of the public.”
If Chris Wright did not order the plant to resume coal combustion this Friday, but he did he create the legal mechanism for SPP’s order. A bit of background:
The 427-megawatt coal-burning unit, one of three at Craig, was scheduled to be retired at the end of 2025, the result of an agreement reached in 2016. The day before its scheduled retirement, Wright issued an order that the unit remain available for power production for 90 days.
In Wright’s order, and a subsequent 90-day extension issued on March 30, Wright cited authority under the emergency clause of the Federal Power Act to order plants remain in operation.
The March 30 order said, “Tri-State and the co-owners shall take all measures necessary to ensure that Craig Unit 1 is available to operate at the direction of” of several parties, including the “Southwest Power Pool West in its role as the Reliability Coordinator.”
What happened to cause the resource adequacy concerns to grow such as necessary to resume combustion at a unit that has been idle for well more than three months is unclear. Perhaps that question will be answered at the Tri-State annual meeting, which is to get underway at 8:30 a.m. on Friday at a hotel in Broomfield.
The broader question remains of whether Wright has acted legally under the 202c clause in the Federal Power Act. That law requires an emergency to justify federal intervention in what ordinarily would be a state authority.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on March 18 filed suit, contesting the grounds for the use of the Federal Power Act in this case. So did the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. Tri-State did not contest use of the law but did object to picking up the costs of running the plant when it has no need itself for the power. See more here.
The unit at Craig ceased operation on Dec. 20 because of mechanical failure. Responding to Wright’s order, Tri-State had the unit repaired by Jan. 20 but has not used it since then.
As for the Southwest Power Pool, it created a new regional transmission organization, a market mechanism for more efficiently sharing electricity and transmission on a regional basis. The RTO became effective in Colorado and other parts of the Western Interconnection Grid on April 1. See, “Why so much excited about the SPP RTO?”
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> “What happened to cause the resource adequacy concerns to grow such as necessary to resume combustion at a unit that has been idle for well more than three months is unclear. Perhaps that question will be answered at the Tri-State annual meeting, which is to get underway at 8:30 a.m. on Friday at a hotel in Broomfield.”
We’re going to find out that Guzman Energy and its former Tri-State members are all resource deficient. It’s not Tri-State that is deficient. We’re also going to find out that SPP has tariff mechanisms to recoup those costs from from the party(s) in violation.
Hi Allen, long time, I was investigating Hg deposition in SW Colo. Did you know that WAPA is actually the Bureau Reclamation, and the major decision maker in the SPP. Cadillac Desert is nothing… and that was a long time ago…