IPP moving on 3rd power unit

The Intermountain Power Project is coming off a record year, and its owners are moving forward with plans to add a third electricity generation unit despite the city of Los Angeles backing out as a participant.

Intermountain Power Agency officials gathered Tuesday in Salt Lake City for the annual IPA meeting and heard that the plant near Delta had a stellar fiscal 2004 both financially and operationally.

"Fueled by Utah's abundant coal reserves, this project was designed to operate efficiently for a generation or more," said Reed Searle, general manager at IPA. "Now, some two decades later, the Intermountain Power Project continues to consistently rank among the very best of America's coal-based power plants in reliability, cost efficiency and environmental responsibility.

"Today, I'm proud to say that we're well-positioned to continue on that path for many years into the future and whatever changes and challenges the future may bring to us."

During the fiscal year ended June 30, the plant generated more than 15 million megawatt-hours of electricity and used nearly 5.8 million tons of coal. It also had operating revenues climb more than $18 million over fiscal 2003 levels, saw debt fall from $3.64 billion to $3.5 billion and reduced net interest by $10 million.

It also had a net capacity factor of nearly 92 percent — tops among 25 comparable coal-fired facilities in the West. In fact, Searle said, the 2003 average factor of 81.9 percent would be equivalent to IPP being idle for five weeks.

What's more, the IPP — with a pair of 750-megawatt units since upgraded to 950 megawatts each — achieved the results "without compromising the environment," Searle said.

IPP had the second-lowest sulfur dioxide emission rate among those 25 comparable Western plants, whose average was 7 1/2 times IPP's emission rate.

"When environmentalists complain, and we see it all the time in the newspapers, about dirty power plants, they are not talking about the Intermountain Power Project," Searle said.

George Cross, president of Intermountain Power Service Corp., had a story to illustrate the plant's low emissions. "I've had a couple of guys, environmentalists from Washington," he said, "and they thought we shut the plant down so that when they came it wouldn't be smoking."