La Plata Electric Association will hold two virtual town hall meetings in October to discuss the options it has for contracting with a new company to provide half of its power supply.
The virtual town hall meetings will be held at 6 p.m. Oct. 25 and Oct. 27.
Since 2019, LPEA has sought to amend its 50-year contract with Tri-State Generation and Transmission in an effort to provide its members with cost-efficient, low-carbon power.
“What we’re looking for is a power portfolio that incorporates more low-carbon energy, that is less expensive and provides the same level of reliability,” said LPEA spokeswoman Hillary Knox.
LPEA reached an agreement with Tri-State that it would seek options for a partial contract to receive 71 megawatts, or about 50% of its annual power, from another power company. Currently, LPEA receives 95% of its power from Tri-State, with the remaining 5% generated by LPEA itself.
“We still have a good relationship with Tri-State. They have been really great in negotiating with us on this partial contract,” Knox said.
Entering into a partial contract with Tri-State would require LPEA to buy-down its current contract.
Dan Harms, LPEA’s vice president of grid solutions, said the co-op will enter into a partial contract only if it comes with a significant cost savings.
“Right now, we do feel we have that option there,” Harms said. “I’m not going to be able to tell people what our contractual rate is, because that’s confidential. ... What I will be able to tell people is how much we’re going to save on a yearly basis.”
Knox said the specifics of the partial contract are still being worked out, but Tri-State granted an initial approval for LPEA to seek out options for 71 megawatts of power from another provider in May.
“They gave 300 megawatts of power to all their members who were seeking partial contracts” Knox said. “We applied for 71 megawatts, and we were eventually allocated all of it.”
In June, LPEA released a request for proposal to allow interested power companies to make a bid on what they would charge for the 71 megawatts per year.
Out of the nine proposals, one stood out as being a promising option for moving forward.
“We’ve gotten our proposals back from vendors, and we’ve narrowed it down to one we want to work with,” Harms said. “We aren’t announcing that one quite yet. We’ve got to button up some agreements before we can announce that.”
LPEA has set a goal to cut its carbon footprint in half by 2030, and Harms said moving forward with a new provider and partial contract with Tri-State could help achieve that goal.
“It’s very possible that we could achieve our 50% reduction the day we start taking power from this new contract,” Harms said.
At the town hall meetings, LPEA will share information from the proposals it received and gather feedback to help inform the LPEA board of directors about future decisions.
“We’re going to be presenting our findings, and what the numbers show,” Knox said. “We’ll be presenting the results of all of our financial analysis around this partial contract option, and having a big Q&A session with our membership.”
After members are given the opportunity to view and comment on LPEA’s financial findings, the board hopes to make a decision by the end of the year.
If things progress with a partial contract buy-down with Tri-State, then LPEA might begin taking power from a new provider as soon as 2023.
njohnson@durangoherald.com
