The Fort Collins Sustainability Group appreciates the memo sent by the Energy Board to City Council earlier this year challenging the tentative approval given by Fort Collins’ members of the PRPA board to move forward with the design and construction of a new gas-fired power plant. We also asked our two PRPA board members to support an all-source RFP for firm, dispatchable power rather than simply proceeding with the earlier recommendation made by PRPA management.
We were pleased when we learned that PRPA had decided to issue an all-dispatchable source RFP back in February. Since the results of that RFP have not been disclosed, it is not clear to us whether the PRPA received any bids for medium- or long-term contracts for power, or whether such bids would even have been considered responsive by the PRPA.
Tonight you will be receiving a presentation from PRPA staff on its 2024 Integrated Resource Plan. Members of the FCSG and allied groups attended a similar presentation last month, and we do not believe that the PRPA has made a convincing case for building a new gas -fired plant. The PRPA already has 388 MW of gas-fired generating capacity that was built in the early 2000s. Given this significant amount of reserve capacity that will remain after the Rawhide 1 coal-fired plant is decommissioned in 2030, we do not think that building addition generating capacity is necessary.
Instead, we would like to see the PRPA enter into medium- or long-term contracts for a mix of renewable and fossil-fuel powered dispatchable power – hopefully mostly renewable – that could tide us over until Long Term Energy Storage Batteries and Virtual Power Plants have become demonstrably reliable options. We do know that the PRPA received a proposal for Long Term Storage Batteries from Saga Energy in response to its all-dispatchable source RFP. The reason given by the PRPA last month for not adding significant amounts of long-term storage to its resource mix for another decade was that the technology is new and its reliability has not yet been adequately documented. And the Virtual Power Plant option likely won’t be able to displace a significant amount of generating capacity until there are significantly more electric vehicles in PRPA’s service territory that are capable to providing electricity back to the grid.
One of our main concerns about proceeding with the construction of a gas plant now is the significant rate increases that doing this will entail: 6.3% per year for the first five years, and then a little over 5% per year for the next five years. The City of Fort Collins is rightly promoting the electrification of buildings and transportation as an important tool in reaching its climate goals. The projected increases in the electric rate will make progress on electrification much more difficult than would otherwise be the case, putting the achievement of our climate goals at risk.
We ask that you continue to ask the hard questions about why the PRPA thinks that building a new gas plant now is necessary, and that you continue to advocate for less costly, more climate -friendly approaches to ensuring a reliable supply of electricity for Fort Collins and the other municipal owners of the PRPA over the coming decade.
