Energy options may includecoal-generated electricity

By Lauren Heaton

This month the Village will begin to evaluate its municipal power source portfolio in the light of a new 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant that American Municipal Power, one of the Village’s main power suppliers, proposes to build in Meigs County along the Ohio River. AMP-Ohio wants its members to commit to a 50-year fixed contract by Nov. 1, and as a baseline power-source, Village Manager Eric Swansen believes it might be a safe option for Yellow Springs. But some say it reinforces a dependence on an environmental pollutant and the country’s number one producer of greenhouse gases.

Village Council will look at an analysis of power supply options for the Village at its regular meeting Monday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. at the Bryan Community Center. At a special meeting Thursday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m., Council will discuss the options that seem most suitable for Yellow Springs. Council is scheduled to vote on whether to commit to the project and complete a first reading of its ordinance at the Oct. 1 meeting, and the following meeting, Oct. 15, will be the final reading.

The current Village power supply portfolio includes a diverse range of sources, including three coal-fired plants, one landfill gas site and a small amount of hydroelectric power which together supply an estimated average of 40,000 megawatts of power per hour to Yellow Springs. The Village holds contracts with AMP-Ohio, a non-profit power cooperative that administers about 60 percent of the power; the Cinergy Corporation, which provides about 35 percent; and Dayton Power & Light, which provides about three percent of local power this year.

All but one of these contracts is set to expire by the year 2013, beyond which the Village has replacement contracts for only 4,000 megawatts before it would have to buy power on the open market. According to Swansen, the power market is very volatile and without alternative purchase contracts already in place, the Village could be forced to pay premium prices it cannot afford.

To replace the contracts, the Village has some options. The proposed coal plant in Meigs County would replace AMP-Ohio’s aging Gorsuch coal plant and could provide the Village with a reliable source of baseload power, the village’s minimum power demand that needs to be met 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Swansen said. According to Kent Carson, director of communications at AMP-Ohio, the cost of power from the new plant would likely be comparable to what the Village pays now for Gorsuch, but the Village would need to commit to purchasing a specific amount of power at a specific price for the next 50 years by Nov. 1. If the Village commits by that date and later decides to opt out of the plan, the Village can, before March 1, 2008, pass an ordinance to bow out, he said. But if the Village does not initially commit by Nov. 1, Carson said the new plant will no longer be an option as a power supply for the village.

But according to local resident Ellis Jacobs, who works as a public interest attorney in Dayton, coal fired power plants are the “largest single, stationary source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.” Jacobs is a board member of Ohio Citizen Action, which opposes the Meigs County plant, along with the Ohio Environmental Council, and the National Resources Defense Council, which has calculated that a 1,000 megawatt power plant would produce CO2 emissions equivalent to that produced by two million cars each year.

With Ohio Governor Ted Strickland’s new energy plan and the state’s Republican leaders talking about reducing carbon emissions by 15 to 20 percent, Jacobs said, a heavy carbon polluter may soon be forced to pay for the emissions it produces as well as suffer the unpredictable cost of coal. It would be smarter to set an example for other AMP-Ohio members by opposing the Meigs project, he said, “and spur a movement for the other members to do the same.”

“By the time this plant comes on line, there will be so many better options we’ll be kicking ourselves for signing onto a 50-year contract with what will then be a dinosaur,” he said.

AMP-Ohio has at least thought about the pollution costs, and according to Carson, has partnered with a company called Powerspan to develop new carbon capture technology, which has been shown in the lab to capture up to 90 percent of the carbon emitted during tests. AMP-Ohio is also a member of the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, which is currently testing methods of sequestering CO2 omissions into deep geological storage or using it for enhanced oil extraction. According to Stephanie Procopis of Powerspan, the company will soon conduct its first commercial demonstration of the carbon capture system, with expectations that the technology will become commercially operational in 2015.

“Coal fire generates 50 percent of the power in the U.S., and new plants are still being proposed, but limits on CO2 are coming,” Procopis said. “It’s not whether they’ll be regulated, but when.”

According to both Swansen and Carson, coal is a safe option for baseload generation, which requires a consistent quality and adequate supply of power. Intermediate power, or the power demands in excess of the baseload demand, could be supplied by renewable sources such as hydropower, photovoltaics and wind power, which can be called upon if available but can also be supplemented by more reliable sources if the water level is down or the wind happens not to be blowing much on a given day, Swansen said.

The Village has a contract to purchase about 20 percent of its daily need as landfill gas through AMP-Ohio, but according to Swansen, the company that produces it has not shown interest in renewing or increasing the contract beyond 2011. Similarly for Cinergy, an investor-owned coal power supply company, the producer has not committed to selling power to municipalities because it can likely make more money selling on the open market, even considering the higher risk involved, said Swansen, who meets with power providers several times a year to evaluate the Village’s contracts.

As for other renewable energy sources that are readily available for the Village, AMP-Ohio currently provides a small amount of hydropower through the New York Power Authority and is in the process of increasing its hydro supply through the Belleville Dam in West Virginia, Carson said. But according to a graph from the Village of the Yellow Springs power supply, the contract Yellow Springs has with both of those sources together will only supply the village with about 4,000 megawatts per hour of the total daily need, beginning in 2013 and continuing through 2031.

AMP-Ohio is also exploring ways to expand the landfill and wind power supply through projects similar to the 7.2-megawatt pilot wind farm at Bowling Green, the first commercial wind project in Ohio, which is now supplying 10 northern Ohio communities with a small amount of renewable power. Though over the past two years the system has functioned at about 26 percent of its capacity due to lack of consistent wind, AMP-Ohio is scheduled to complete a feasibility study next spring on a second 50-megawatt capacity wind farm, also in the Bowling Green vicinity. According to Carson, the group could begin soliciting preliminary support from its members and planning construction for the new project as early as next year. AMP-Ohio aims to have a 100-megawatt hybrid wind/landfill system at some point in the future, Carson said, adding that currently AMP-Ohio has chosen to focus on wind and landfill instead of solar power as renewable energy sources with the most potential.

Currently AMP-Ohio buys over 50 percent of its power on the open market, but the ultimate goal is to “get power that comes from assets that we, the members, control,” Carson said, so that power can be purchased at cost.

“The new coal plant is about stability and avoiding prices which fluctuate, and the goal is to give members affordable wholesale power,” he said.

Though 77 AMP-Ohio members agreed in 2003 to be part of AMP-Ohio’s feasibility study for the new plant, Carson would not say how many of its members had committed to the 50-year contract.

It is clear that power supply contracts take years, and even decades to plan. The Meigs plant has been in the works since before 2002 and isn’t projected to come online until 2012 or later, and the AMP-Ohio Belleville hydro project the Village signed up with earlier this year won’t begin supplying power to the Village until 2012. According to Swansen, it takes time to conduct studies, set up contractual agreements, plan construction projects and obtain the permits and funding needed for these projects.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com