PacifiCorp sticking with coal


While Portland General Electric plans to make the switch to shut its Boardman coal plant, PacifiCorp is sticking with coal.

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While Portland General Electric plans to make the switch to shut its Boardman coal plant, PacifiCorp is sticking with coal despite the soaring costs needed to retrofit coal plants.

PacifiCorp relies on a fleet of 26 coal-fired boilers at 11 locations in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and Colorado. Those plants provide almost two-thirds of the electricity consumed by customers in its six-state territory, and their low-cost output partly explains why Pacific Power’s rates in Oregon remain lower than PGE’s.

“For baseload generation, it’s either gas, coal or nuclear,” said Micheal Dunn, president of PacifiCorp Energy. “There aren’t a lot of other options out there, and we believe that retrofitting the coal units is the most economical option for our customers.”

Read more at the Statesman Journal.

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