Dive Brief:
- After nine municipal utility customers’ informed Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E/KU) they would terminate 320 megawatts of wholesale power contracts in 2019, the regulated subsidiary of PPL Corp withdrew its application to the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) for the $700 million, 700 megawatt Green River combined cycle natural gas plant.
- LG&E/KU will continue its application for a $36 million, 10 megawatt solar photovoltaic facility that would go online in 2016 at KU’s hybrid E.W. Brown Generating Station, which already has a hydroelectric plant, three coal burning units and seven natural gas or oil burning turbines that together have more than 1,650 megawatts of electricity generating capacity.
- The withdrawal of the Green River application came because the LG&E/KU load forecasts through 2035, which were previously based on serving the municipal customers, are now significantly reduced.
Dive Insight:
LG&E/KU filed the request for the Green River facility with the Kentucky PSC in January. After the municipalities announced they would terminate their contracts, the utility waited 90 days before withdrawing the application for the natural gas combined-cycle unit planned for Western Kentucky.
The E.W. Brown Generating Station will also be the site of a $19.5 million, 2 megawatt, thermal, post-combustion carbon dioxide capture research and pilot system scheduled to complete testing in mid-2016 that will be operated and funded by LG&E/KU, the University of Kentucky, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, and the Carbon Management Research Group, a consortium of utilities, public agencies, and private corporations.
