Colorado’s Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association is losing members and as a result is offering to sell its excess power, the G&T utility said Tuesday.
“In a tightening regional power market, Tri-State has the opportunity to reduce cost pressures on our remaining members by selling power to other parties,” CEO Duane Highley said in a statement.
Tri-State is a wholesale power supply cooperative serving 45 members, including 42 electric distribution cooperative and public power district members in four states. But United Power in Colorado and Northwest Rural Public Power District in Nebraska plan to terminate their wholesale electric service contracts and withdraw from membership in 2024, and Mountain Parks Electric in Colorado will leave in 2025.
Tri-State released a request for offers from third parties to purchase power from April 1, 2024, through Dec. 31, 2027. The request for offers is focused on power purchase agreements, and products offered include tolling agreements, block sales of energy, and dispatchable capacity.
“Tri-State has the generating capacity to ensure power is always available to our members, and we can also provide this dispatchable power to others to help ensure reliability and resilience,” Highley said.
Interested parties should submit an initial response by Sept. 14, and full offers and proposals are due Sept. 29.
“Tri-State will not consider offers to purchase its generating resources,” according to the utility’s announcement.
Moody’s Investors Service in January lowered Tri-State’s credit outlook to negative, in part over concerns the wholesale cooperative utility may lose members and to reflect a settlement that cut member rates by 2% in 2021 and again in 2022.
Tri-State members have left or considered leaving over cost concerns as well as the generation and transmission provider’s reliance on coal. The utility has been making efforts to address both issues. Tri-State says it is “accelerating the retirement of our coal generation and adding clean energy in locations across our members’ service territories ... bringing our system up to over 2 gigawatts of renewables by 2025. This will include the most solar of any cooperative in the nation.”
United Power, Tri-State’s largest member, in July announced it had signed a 15-year contract with wholesale power provider Guzman Energy.
“The power supply agreement features fixed wholesale power pricing that provides the cooperative predictable and stable power supply costs,” United Power said in a news release. “Under the agreement, Guzman will deliver approximately one-third of the cooperative’s power needs, beginning in May 2024.”
