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Cheyenne Prairie Generating StationPreparing For The FutureAs your community partner, we must plan for our customers’ energy needs. That includes planning now for new Environmental Protection Agency regulations and our customers’ growing energy demand. Through an extensive planning process called Integrated Resource Planning (IRP), we identified that Black Hills Power and Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power need new energy generation. Black Hills Power Black Hills Power’s need for the Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station is driven by the impact of environmental regulatory requirements on its older coal-fired generating facilities. The Environmental Protection Agency issued National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Area Sources: Industrial Commercial and Institutional Boiler regulations. These regulations impose limits on mercury and carbon monoxide from small boilers including coal-fired units that are 25 megawatts or less. These new EPA regulations require some power plants to be upgraded to meet new emissions limits or retired from service within a three-year compliance window and will have an impact on three of Black Hills Power’s coal-fired generating facilities:
Based on the IRP, these three plants totaling 71 MWs of generation need to be retired in 2014. The IRP also recommends the conversion of a combustion turbine generator to combined cycle operations in the same timeframe. By partnering with Cheyenne Light, Black Hills Power benefits from using new technology rather than conversion of one of its older simple cycle units. Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power Cheyenne Light needs the Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station because of growing energy demand. Cheyenne is experiencing positive economic development, and Cheyenne Light is a partner in making sure those businesses have the energy they need to succeed. Recent examples of this growth include the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the continued development of the Swan Ranch Industrial Park and indications of expansion plans from industrial customers. Cheyenne Light experienced a new system peak in July, 2011 and expects to continue experiencing all-time high load requirements. The IRP states new intermediate and peaking energy resourcesneed to be available by 2014.
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