Two of the four units at the Colstrip Power Plant will be shuttered by the end of this year, the plant owners have announced. The two older units at Colstrip had been set to close but not for another year and a half. The plant owners announced in June that plants one and two were no longer profitable.
Mine workers at the nearby Rosebud Mine say the shutdown means a 30 percent drop in coal sales.
NBC Montana reports that state Sen. Duane Ankney (R-Colstrip) is "devastated and extremely disappointed" that the parties could not come to the table and figure out how to keep the units going.
Puget Sound Energy and Talen Energy, the owners of units one and two, told NBC Montana that their decision to pull out early was an economic one. A representative from Talen Energy blamed the early closings on the failure of efforts to negotiate lower fuel prices with the owners of the Westmoreland Rosebud Mine.
“... Repeated efforts to negotiate lower fuel prices with Westmoreland Rosebud Mining have been rebuffed,” Talen’s statement said.
Ankney told NBC Montana that he is working at the state level to advocate for the coal industry and bring money to Colstrip's workers through the Department of Labor.
The mine workers are bracing for cutbacks and told NBC Montana that layoffs due to attrition and retirement may slow down the immediate impact of the job losses. They also expect the creation of some new jobs in land reclamation.
Four of the coal-fired power plant's six owners, who collectively own a 70 percent share in the facility, have individually made plans to stop investing money in the power plant beginning in 2025, the Billings Gazette reported.
NorthWestern says Colstrip will run until 2043. However, NorthWestern owns only a 30 percent stake in one generator at Colstrip – not a big enough stake to ensure that the plant will remain operational for twenty-two more years.
Commissioner Tony O’Donnell, a Republican who resides in Billings, said the commission needs to begin investigating what the eventual closure of all four plants will mean for ratepayers, the Billings Gazette said. NorthWestern Energy customers face acknowledged risks of $300 million in debt that will eventually need to be repaid.
The Montana PSC commissioners stopped short of requiring NorthWestern to address the debt liability as a condition of the utility’s request to increase customer rates by $6.5 million.
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