IURC

Digest (July 2014)

Austin Energy awards Recurrent Energy a contract for Texas' largest solar power plant; Indianapolis Power & Light receives approval from IURC to invest $600 million in gas turbine power station; Tucson Electric Power to purchase solar power from Avalon Solar Project; Xcel Energy and SunPower sign a PPA for a 50-MW solar plant in Colorado; American Electric Power plans to replace existing wire on transmission line running from Ohio to West Virginia; Midcontinent ISO amends its tariff to allow for short-term variations in net load requirements; FERC approves ISO New England's "Pay-for-Performance" plan.

Indianapolis Power & Light Company Receives Approval for New 650 MW CCGT and Natural Gas Conversion of 200 MW Coal Plant

Indianapolis Power & Light (IPL), received approval from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) for its request for a certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN), allowing IPL to invest approximately $600 million into a new 650 MW combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station near Martinsville, Indiana and $36 million to convert two units at the Harding Street Generation Station totaling 200 MW from coal to natural gas. The CCGT project will commence construction in third quarter 2014 and is expected to come online in 2017.

The Old Drawing Board

Portfolio planning in the age of gas.

PUCs are concerned that a rapid shutdown of coal-fired plants will start a full-tilt dash to gas—similar to the one that caused bankruptcies among independent power producers in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But this time around, ratepayers and not IPP investors will be stuck with the risk, if utilities rush to add all that new gas-fired capacity to rate base.