AEP’s clean-coal plant delayed
Utility seeks six more months before starting work in Meigs County
Friday, January 19, 2007
Paul Wilson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
columbusdispatch.com
American Electric Power will delay building a clean-coal plant in Meigs County for at least six months and wants to do the same at a twin project in West Virginia.
Both 629-megawatt plants would use technology considered crucial to address global warming and growing energy demands. But studies of the two sites along the Ohio River found that the projects would cost more than AEP expected, because of rising steel, concrete and labor costs, the utility said.
Last week, AEP told Ohio officials about the delay and also requested extra time in West Virginia, where an extension is subject to regulatory approval.
Still, the Columbus-based utility said the projects, slated to go online between 2010 and 2015, aren’t in jeopardy.
"We’re still totally committed to the technology," spokesman Pat Hemlepp said. "We’re still totally committed to the projects."
The original price tag for each plant was $1.3 billion, about 20 percent more than the cost of an operation without clean-coal technology, Hemlepp said.
Studies of the sites found the gap could be wider. AEP, working with project designers Bechtel Corp. and General Electric Co., wants more time to study ways to cut costs, Hemlepp said.
The extra time won’t cost ratepayers more, AEP said. But the findings are important in determining how the projects will be paid for.
In Ohio, the Public Utilities Commission allowed AEP to charge customers $24 million to study the Meigs County site last year. The PUCO wanted to see the findings before ruling on whether AEP could charge customers to build and run the plant.
AEP’s delay shows state regulators acted correctly in not granting AEP’s full request, PUCO Chairman Alan Schriber said. Several groups appealed that ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court, including the state Office of Consumers’ Counsel.
Janine L. Migden-Ostrander, leader of that group, disagreed with Schriber, saying AEP’s delay "confirms our concerns."
"What the utility is saying is, ‘We don’t want our shareholders to take the risk, but we want the hard-working residential customer to pay for this,’ " she said.
The new plants would strip away pollutants that create smog, soot and acid rain. They also could be retrofitted to capture carbon dioxide, a gas linked to global warming.
"If we don’t do (clean-coal) plants, then the opportunity for economic growth becomes far more limited if we are also going to address global warming," said Robert Burns, a researcher at the National Regulatory Research Institute at Ohio State University.
About 150 coal-fired plants are in various stages of development in the United States. About two dozen would use clean-coal technology, Burns said.
AEP has a mixed environmental past. But pursuit of clean-coal technology is part of a "practical and progressive" strategy for the utility, Burns said.
paul.wilson@dispatch.com
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