One of the units at the Comanche coal-fired plant operated by Xcel Energy near Pueblo can stay open a year longer than planned to fill the gap while the site’s largest facility, the chronically troubled Comanche 3, remains out of commission.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission agreed Wednesday to extend the life of Comanche 2, which was scheduled to close at the end of this year. Xcel Energy sought to keep the unit running after coal unit Comanche 3, the utility’s largest power generating source, malfunctioned in August.
Xcel has said Comanche 3 could be out of service until June.
While the PUC approved keeping the smaller unit running, members voted to require more frequent reporting by Xcel on the status of the plant and costs. The regulators warned that the company runs the risk of not being authorized to recover what it spends to repair Comanche 3 if alternatives would have been more cost-effective.
Commissioner Tom Plant said he was bothered by the assumption that “whatever it takes to get Unit 3 running is going to be a good strategy.” Plant and other members pointed out that Comanche 3 has experienced problems and numerous outages since opening near Pueblo in 2010.
The unit, originally forecast to run until 2070, is scheduled to close by the end of 2030. The closure is part of efforts by the state and utilities to cut greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.
Some of the parties weighing in on Xcel’s petition to keep Unit 2 open longer urged the PUC to protect the company’s customers from footing the bill to fix the long-ailing Unit 3. The Colorado Energy Office and the Colorado Utility Consumer Advocate office supported Xcel’s petition.
The PUC expressed frustration with not having more information about what it will cost to repair the unit. Members adopted a proposal by the conservation organization Western Resource Advocates to require Xcel to report its progress each month instead of the two reports the company proposed.
“How do you go into a project like this, a multimillion-dollar project, without even a ballpark estimate of what your costs are going to be and with the assumption that it’s just going to be approved and passed onto ratepayers? I just find that mind-boggling,” Plant said.
All three PUC members want Xcel Energy to identify potential costs before the money’s spent, but didn’t require that at this point. Commissioner Megan Gilman said the PUC’s approval of keeping the smaller unit open for the time being isn’t approval of whatever Xcel might spend to fix the larger unit.
“I get that a lot of information may not be available just yet,” Gilman said.
But Gilman said the timing of the reports proposed by Xcel, including a June 1 application that could seek additional variances or approval of resources, is difficult. “We’re not even going to get a filing to assess the path forward until they supposedly already fixed it and spent all the money. That is a backward process of what analysis should be done.”
The PUC adopted another recommendation by Western Resource Advocates that would limit the total, combined power generation of the two units if Comanche 3 is repaired and starts operating in 2026.
“We appreciate the approval to extend Comanche 2 through Dec. 31, 2026, as it provides an essential, reliable resource that will be needed throughout 2026, even after Comanche 3 returns to service in the middle of next year,” Xcel spokeswoman Michelle Aguayo said.
She said Xcel will wait to see the commission’s written order before responding to the decision’s details.
“Maybe now that the Commission has sent a strong message that Xcel risks having to bear the burden of fixing the plant instead of passing the buck to customers, it will find cleaner, cheaper and clearly more reliable alternatives,” Eric Frankowski, executive director of the Western Clean Energy Campaign, said in a statement.
A group that includes the Pueblo County commissioners and the city of Pueblo supports keeping the smaller coal unit open. The group said in a filing with the PUC that Xcel Energy is facing a capacity shortage.
A previous analysis by the PUC staff showed that other coal plants struggled to stay online during the summer. The report highlighted what Xcel called a “code orange” event, meaning there was a realistic possibility of not having enough power to meet the demand for electricity. The utility asked customers to conserve energy Aug. 7 to avoid managed, rotating blackouts.
Xcel, Colorado’s largest electric utility, has proposed replacing the Comanche coal plant with wind and solar power, battery storage and natural gas generation.