US Power Regulators Think Long and Hard About Gas

摘要

Faced with requests to replace retiring coal plants,state regulators in many parts of the US are starting to question the wisdom of building carbon-emitting gas infrastructure designed for decades of use when renewables and battery storage are much more compatible with efforts to decarbonize the sector by midcentury.Regulators in New Mexico are the latest to grapple with the problem after the Public Service Company of New Mexico filed an application this month to retire the last two units at the coal-fired San Juan generating station in 2022.The utility offered four replacement options.The first-and cheapest at $733 million-is to build 280 megawatts of gas peaking units at the site,along with 350 MW of solar capacity and 130 MW of battery storage capacity.The second envisages replacing most of the power with gas,the third with no new fossil fuels,and the fourth with renewables.