Dive Brief:
- Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities will need to add between 368 MW and 737 MW of natural gas generation beginning in 2020, the companies said in an update to their 2014 resource assessment.
- Some of the generation need is related to the planned retirement of 272 MW of coal-fired generation near Harrodsburg, Ky, Platts reports.
- The PPL subsidiaries will retire two units at the E.W. Brown coal plant, but said they continue to seek approval to construct a 10 MW photovoltaic solar facility at the station by December 2016.
Dive Insight:
The utilities told regulators that "with the planned changes to the companies’ generation portfolio," a long‐term need for capacity had been identified beginning in 2020 in the base load scenarios.
"In the Low load scenarios, the companies do not have any additional need for capacity through the last year of the IRP which is 2028," they said. "In the High load scenarios, the companies’ reserve margin is below the minimum of the target range from 2015 onward."
In scenarios with low gas prices, the utilities said they will likely construct natural gas combined cycle capacity. In a higher-priced gas environment, simple-cycle combustion turbine capacity would be used.
