The contract with Enchant would be executed if and when the plant is transferred to the new owners. "We've gotten an abundance of qualified local people that are excited about having a job at the power plant. "It's a best-case scenario," Charlie Hoock, NAES' senior vice president of power services and renewables, said in an interview. NAES has already held initial talks with local union leaders about staffing the facility. The small group behind the San Juan carbon project, led by a former PacifiCorp executive and two investors with New York hedge fund Acme Equities, remains undeterred.Įnchant Energy is finalizing a contract with one of the nation's largest power plant operators, NAES Corp., to run San Juan. PNM is focusing on operating the plant safely through September but is no longer investing in maintenance of the aging site. More than 30 workers at the coal plant took voluntary layoffs June 30 in anticipation of San Juan production winding down. The utility must also file a demolition plan with San Juan County within 90 days of closing the plant - all work that is being planned out now, Fallgren said. PNM, the majority owner of the San Juan plant, is required by the facility's ownership agreement and state law to shutter the 46-year-old facility's last operating unit by the end of September. "So PNM has a contractual obligation to proceed with an orderly shutdown." "There remain threshold issues, which are not resolved," Tom Fallgren, vice president of generation for PNM Resources Inc., said in an interview. It looks unlikely they will have a deal before the plant closes Sept. Retaining high-paying jobs and much-needed local tax revenue are priorities for labor unions and the city of Farmington, N.M., which owns 5% of the plant.Įnchant Energy, the three-year-old startup leading the carbon capture venture, has retained a new plant operator and is already offering power purchase contracts to customers in other states.īut after three years of negotiations between Enchant, Farmington stakeholders and the current owners of the plant, little progress has been made on resolving several crucial issues such as who should be liable for decommissioning and the environmental clean-up of the plant if the facility were to change hands. Proponents of a $1.4 billion-plus carbon capture project at the New Mexico coal-fired plant hope the facility will be transferred to new owners and keep operating past its Sept. In less than 60 days, the San Juan Generating Station is scheduled to produce its final kilowatt-hour of power and release its last pound of CO2 into the atmosphere. Source: Steven Baltakatei Sandoval/Wikimedia The 847-MW San Juan Generating Station in New Mexico has operated since 1976.
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