CORE Electric said it was relinquishing its 25% stake in the Comanche unit 3 coal-fired power plant, blaming the Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) for “ongoing mismanagement” of the facility.
CORE said PSCo, an Xcel Energy subsidiary, must buy its stake in the plant, based on previous project agreements.
Comanche 3 has been prone to costly breakdowns and outages, CORE alleges, including through almost all of 2020 and half of 2022.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission previously investigated operations at Comanche 3 and found PSCo failed to meet basic industry standards throughout much of the plant’s history. CORE has an open lawsuit against PSCo for breach of contract related to the unit.
CORE alleges that outages at Comanche 3 have resulted in millions of dollars in additional repairs as well as reliability issues for customers.
A 2021 report by staff of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission found that the levelized cost of energy from Comanche 3 has been “significantly higher” than was anticipated when the unit was proposed in 2004. It said the forecasted LCOE was $45.70, while through 2020 the actual LCOE was $66.25/MW.
The staff report said that when compared to other PSCo-owned coal- and gas-fueled units that operate on either a single steam cycle or a combined cycle, Comanche 3 had the lowest availability of all units from 2010 through October 2020, despite being the youngest unit.
It said that for the period from the start of commercial operations on July 6, 2010 through the end of 2020, the unit had on average 91.5 days of outages each yea. Roughly 27% of the outages were planned, 24% were associated with boiler tube leaks, and the remaining “associated with other unplanned” non-routine outages.
“Despite every effort by CORE to be heard, PSCo has ignored our rights and driven this plant to dysfunction through mismanagement and incompetence,” said Jeff Baudier, CEO, in a statement. “This situation is untenable, and CORE must move on to forge our clean, reliable, and affordable energy future.”
In response to this latest development, a spokesperson for Xcel Energy told us in an emailed statement: “We disagree with CORE’s claims and expect to address them through the legal process. Generation at Comanche 3 is very important for all customers and we value all our partners who help provide safe, reliable and affordable energy.”
The Comanche plant in Pueblo, Colorado began service in 1973 with its 325 MW unit 1. It added a 335 MW unit 3 in 1975 and started running the 766 MW unit 3 in 2010. Comanche 3 was Xcel’s first coal-fired project in more than 30 years.
Comanche Unit 3 is expected to retire by Jan. 1, 2031, ending Xcel’s use of coal in Colorado. The date comes from a recently revised agreement and is nine years earlier than the retirement date in the originally submitted plan.
COMING SOON: Stay with Power Engineering for a deeper dive into the operations at Comanche 3.