Preparing for the future
As your community partner, we’re always planning 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, we identified that Black Hills PowerCheyenne Light, Fuel & Power needed energy generation additions.
Black Hills Power customers need the Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station because of environmental requirements impacting our 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 fewer.
These new EPA regulations require us to upgrade some power plants to meet new emissions limits or retire them within a three-year compliance window. This will affect three of our coal-fired generating facilities:
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Ben French in Rapid City, S.D. — built in 1960
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Neil Simpson I in Gillette, Wyo. — built in 1969
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Osage in Osage, Wyo. — built in 1952
Based on our integrated resource plan, we’ll need to retire these three plants — totaling 81 megawatts of generation — before March 2014. The IRP also recommends converting a combustion turbine generator to combined cycle operations at the same time. We’re partnering with our sister utility, Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power, to benefit from using new technology rather than converting our older, simple-cycle units.
Cheyenne Light needs the Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station because of growing energy demand.
Cheyenne is experiencing positive economic development, and we’re partnering to make sure those businesses have the energy they need to succeed. Recent examples of this growth include the National Center for Atmospheric Research supercomputer, the continued development of the Swan Ranch Industrial Park, and indications of expansion plans from industrial customers.
We experienced a new system peak in July, 2012 and expect to keep experiencing all-time high load requirements. Our integrated resource plan says we’ll need new intermediate and peaking energy resources by 2014.
