About 100 stakeholders, including law enforcement, community leaders, and state, county and local officials, gathered at the Monticello Community Center Wednesday morning for a community appreciation breakfast by Xcel Energy.
Xcel Minnesota President Chris Clark took the opportunity to thank all the local partners and gave everyone an update about the future of Xcel’s operations.
Clark said Xcel is going through a major transition, with numerous changes in the type of energy resources.
Sherco 1 and 2 in Becker are scheduled to be closed in 2023 and 2026 respectively, to be replaced by a new gas plant on the same site. And Xcel is increasing solar and wind as compliments to coal and nuclear.
“We have the opportunity to integrate new resources into our system,” he said. “We’re able to deliver energy that is cleaner, more reliable and more affordable for our customers.”
He said costs have been coming down for different types of energy, which has helped keep utility relatively bills flat for the past five years.
He spoke about wind power and how it is becoming much more cost effective than ever.
“We’ve been the nation’s number one wind provider for the past 12 years,” he said. “And this past summer we added 1,550 megawatts of wind and today we’re announcing an additional 300.”
Clark said there have been tremendous gains in technology and efficiencies with wind turbines, and with energy credits, wind energy in more cost-effective than ever anticipated.
“The wind we’re bringing on is cheaper than Sherco 1 and 2,” he said. “If would have asked any of us five or 10 years ago if we would have believed that would happen, we would have told you no. The industry has done a tremendous job.”
But he said wind is just one resource. Xcel will be going through an evaluation in 2019 to look at the future of all the baseline power plants. The Monticello nuclear plant is licensed until 2030. The A.S. King coal plant in Bayport is scheduled to close in 2037. Sherco 3 is slated for closure in 2040.
“I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we had parties advocating the closure of those much earlier,” he said. “But we want to study this and do this the right way.”
He said there has to be a long-term plan to go along with any plant closures so there are enough resources to keep generating efficient, cost-effective energy.
Xcel’s Chief Nuclear Officer Tim O’Connor said nuclear energy is a key element of the energy grid infrastructure, yet many plants are closed or are slated for closure.
He said of 7,700 generating plants in the country,. just 99 are current running reactors. But they generate more than 20% of the power.
He said there are there are a number of people who are afraid of nuclear power, and there are no subsidies like for other energy resources.
“Energy markets aren’t necessarliy fair,” he said. “We face the same economic issues and the same political disagreements about whether nuclear should be in the energy portfolio.”
Clark said along with any plant closing comes economic impact. And Xcel is in the process of helping the community transition for the closing of Sherco 1 & 2.
“We’re committed to host communities. We recognize there will be fewer jobs when we close the plants,” he said. “We’re working hard to encourage economic development around the site. We’re working with local landowners to attract businesses and to land additional jobs, additional manufacturing and additional local support.”
