Power lines lead into the coal-fired Intermountain Power Plant on March 28, 2016 outside Delta, Utah. The IPP generates more then 13 million megawatt hours of coal-fired energy each year to Utah and Southern California. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)
When Utah lawmakers passed legislation aimed to prevent what they considered the premature closure of the state’s fossil fuel generators, they thought that would effectively keep Intermountain Power Plant coal units open past their 2025 retirement date.
Now they’re looking to make sure it happens.
The Legislature earlier this year approved SB161, which would block closing two coal-fired generators that are part of the Intermountain Power Plant located near Delta — to the dismay of the Intermountain Power Agency and some Utah municipalities, while threatening the approval of federal air quality permit — and allow the state to buy the generators. That bill was drafted after the Legislature commissioned a study on the plant’s potential and its environmental regulations through HB425, which passed in 2023.
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The state is now planning to consider a bill to cover a spot they missed, Rep. Colin Jack, R-St. George, said Wednesday — potential switchyard equipment disconnections that could make existing coal units “unusable.”
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“You could say, ‘why do we even need this bill? We had HB425 that said that we have to leave the coal plants functional and usable,’” Jack said. “And without station power and without the switchyard access, they’re not functional and usable. But this just clarifies that, since there was apparently a gap in that understanding.”
Titled Decommissioned Asset Disposition Amendments, the legislation would prohibit an entity from “altering facilities that provide power to station service, disconnecting from or modifying existing interconnections and critical switchyard equipment; and taking actions that would require a new plant owner to make an interconnection request.”
Cameron Cowan, general manager of IPA, told the state-appointed Decommissioned Asset Disposition Authority that the agency won’t take any action to prevent the functionality of the coal units, in compliance with HB425. However, there are some exceptions related to the IPP Renewed project, a multi-billion dollar natural gas facility that was meant to replace the facility’s fossil fuel generation.
“IPA is obligated under existing requirements to cease operation of the coal units permanently in 2025,” Cowan wrote in a letter. “Also, the coal units will no longer be interconnected with a transmission system because the positions at the IPP switchyard will be repurposed consistent with plans for the IPP Renewed project that were developed years ago.”
However, Cowan said, any changes to the design of IPP Renewed since the enactment of HB425 will not prevent the functionality of the coal units.
Two Democratic lawmakers questioned why the bill is making the issue a priority now, when IPA’s intent to drop its coal units has been known for over a decade.
“I was probably here (10 years ago), and I probably should have raised more questions, but I didn’t,” Jack said. “I thought things were going in a good way, but evidently, they’re not.”
While most lawmakers in the Public Utilities, Energy, and Technology Interim Committee recommended the bill for the general session, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, successfully requested that the bill doesn’t bypass any committee hearings in 2025, as there are still concerns and questions to be answered about IPA’s capacity to run its natural gas project, and the timing to issue new permits if coal plants were to be disconnected.
“I want my cake and I want to eat it, too,” Vickers said. “I want them to be able to go through with their new project. But I also want to keep those coal plants open and running. The only question I have is strictly on the process.”
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