#Comanche station generator#

Regulators in May 2020 approved Xcel’s request to recoup $11.7 million in repair costs from customers.

#Comanche station generator#

He declined to comment for this story.Ī commission investigation released last year found the generator was shut down for nearly two cumulative years since it started service in 2010, dropping the plant’s capacity and pushing energy costs 45 percent higher than original estimates. Utilities usually have up to 30 days to provide such reports. Gavan asked Xcel to provide an incident report as soon as possible, according to a recording of the commission’s meeting. The shutdown also comes as the Public Utilities Commission prepares to announce the closing date for the Comanche station and the end of Xcel’s coal operations in the state.Ĭommissioner John C. The February outage is the latest in a long history of unexpected breakdowns and cost overruns for the Comanche 3 generator, which opened in 2010 and cost more than a billion dollars to build. “The company will cover the potential incremental costs of any additional replacement energy needed to serve our retail customers.” “Crews are currently working to assess the extent of the issue and begin the repairs needed,” Aguayo said. She did not answer questions about when the company expected the generator to be running again. Xcel Energy spokesperson Michelle Aguayo told CPR News in a statement the generator was being repaired. She added that workers would have to disassemble the generator. In a letter to commissioners, Brooke Trammell, Xcel’s vice president of rates and regulatory affairs, said the outage was triggered by electrical problems and will not affect the system’s reliability. 3 and whether the shutdown could affect service for customers.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday ordered Xcel Energy, the operator, to provide a report explaining why the coal-fired generator - the state’s newest - stopped operating Feb. The report said the unit averaged 91.5 days per year of outages over a decade and was out of commission for all but a handful of days in 2020 because of equipment malfunctions, including damage to the turbine and generator.Colorado utility regulators want to know why a generator in the state’s largest coal-fired power plant has been shut down for two weeks - and they ordered the plant’s operator to tell them as soon as possible. Xcel Energy has said that Comanche 3 is a valuable part of its system, but a PUC report in 2021 painted a picture of a chronically malfunctioning unit since it started operating in 2010. The company will cover the potential incremental costs of any additional replacement energy needed to serve our retail customers,” Xcel Energy spokeswoman Michelle Aguayo said in a statement. “Crews are currently working to assess the extent of the issue and begin the repairs needed. 6 that it was disassembling the generator at Comanche 3 after “a two-part event” damaged it. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission has opened an investigation and has directed Xcel Energy, the state’s largest electric utility, to submit a report as soon as possible. The chronically troubled Comanche 3 unit at Xcel Energy’s coal-fired plant in Pueblo is out of commission again and state regulators want to know the cause, the cost of the repairs and when the plant will be back online.

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