A natural gas-fired plant large enough to power 1.25 million homes has secured $875 million in financing and will begin construction soon in Grundy County.
The CPV Three Rivers Energy Center, developed by Silver Spring, Md.-based Competitive Power Ventures, has been on the drawing board for four years. The company announced today that it closed on the debt facility with a group of lenders led by Stamford, Ct.-based GE Energy Financial Services, the U.S. unit of Japan-based Osaka Gas, Montreal-based Axium Infrastructure and Chicago-based Harrison Street.
The combined-cycle plant, CPV’s largest U.S. project in its 21-year history, is expected to become operational in 2023.
The project is located very near Exelon’s Dresden nuclear station in Morris. That facility is one of three Chicago-based Exelon has said is at risk of early closure due to financial stress from historically low wholesale power prices.
At a capacity of 1,250 megawatts, Three Rivers would make up for much of the loss of output if Dresden closes. Dresden’s two reactors generate more than 1,800 megawatts.
Now that CPV’s gas plant—one of the largest in Illinois—is becoming reality, it likely will intensify the ongoing debate over preservation of nuclear plants, which are struggling to compete in an era of cheap natural gas but which have the benefit of emitting no carbon that contributes to global warming.
Of the three Illinois nukes Exelon has said are endangered—Braidwood, Byron and Dresden—Dresden is believed to be the most imperiled. In seeming recognition of that, Exelon hasn’t even started the lengthy process of renewing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for Dresden’s reactors, one of which expires in 2027 and the other in 2029. Exelon has said it still has time to renew them if Dresden’s finances are resolved.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Aug. 21 set forth extensive principles for wide-ranging energy legislation that would achieve his goal of a carbon-free power industry in the state by 2050. Exelon has lobbied for ratepayer-financed assistance from the state, and Pritzker said he’s open to a discussion if the company opens up its audited books to the state for each plant.
In the meantime, environmental advocates fret that adding more gas-fired power to the state’s energy mix will make achieving Pritzker’s goals more difficult, especially if they displace carbon-free nukes.
CPV in a release argued that the plant will help the state’s climate-change efforts, not hinder them.
“The facility will have unmatched operational flexibility which allows it to quickly respond to demand changes introduced with the growing deployment of renewable generation,” the company said. “The unique ability for this state-of-the-art technology to provide highly efficient, low-emitting, reliable power and to support renewables with the unmatched operating flexibility offers an optimal solution for Illinois to meet its carbon reduction goals.”
Nuclear plants, by contrast, can’t turn on and off the way gas-fired plants can; they’re essentially running 24 hours a day unless they’re shut down for refueling. That flexibility enables output from a gas plant to balance demand on the grid when wind farms and solar facilities are producing or when they’re not.
The other issue that comes in the gas versus nuke debate is jobs. The CPV plant will create as many as 500 construction jobs as it’s being built, but once operational will require just 25 full-time staff at the site with 75 other jobs needed to provide services, according to the company.
Dresden, meantime, employs hundreds full time and pays nearly $25 million a year in local taxes, according to Exelon’s website.
Grundy County politicians are supportive nonetheless. “After years of development, I am pleased to officially welcome CPV Three Rivers to Grundy County,” “Energy has always been the backbone of Grundy County, and I support the expansion of all resource types to ensure grid reliability, bring new tax revenue streams to the state of Illinois and spur job creation that puts Americans back to work.”
“Energy has always been the backbone of Grundy County, and I support the expansion of all resource types to ensure grid reliability, bring new tax revenue streams to the state of Illinois and spur job creation that puts Americans back to work,” state Rep. Larry Walsh Jr., D-Joliet, said in the same release.
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August 24, 2020 at 06:30PM
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