PGE files new plan on 2020 closure of coal-fired Boardman
Portland General Electric Co. on Friday said it filed an amendment to an energy resource plan in which it asks state utility regulators to approve a 2020 closure of the company’s lone coal-fired power plant.
The Portland-based electric utility (NYSE: POR) originally filed its “integrated resource plan” in November to the Oregon Public Utilities Commission. The document outlines how PGE will produce and distribute power to its customers.
The original proposal included a recommendation to install emissions control upgrades to the 585-megawatt plant near Boardman at an estimated cost of between $520 million or $560 million. As a result of the sizable investment, the company planned to keep the plant open until 2040.
The new proposal, however, calls for closing the plant 20 years earlier while installing just $41 million in pollution control upgrades.
PGE last week filed a similar request with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to sign-off on revisions to a regional haze reduction plan that had initially called for the expensive pollution-control upgrades.
The Boardman plant, of which PGE owns 65 percent, is a low-cost power source for PGE that last year accounted for 24 percent of its power supply. But it’s been vilified as a major source of haze and greenhouse-gas pollutants.
Though it had earlier considered plans to close the plant in 2011 or 2014, PGE settled on the 2040 closure date in order to justify the size of the investment required under the current Regional Haze Plan.
Ratepayer and environmental advocates, however, urged the utility to find a way to close the plant earlier.
If the 2020 plan surpasses the regulatory hurdles, PGE said it will consider several replacement energy sources for the Boardman plant, including natural gas, biomass and other renewable technologies.
If the 2020 plan isn’t approved, PGE said closing the Boardman plant in 2040 “is still the best choice available under current rules.”
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