Colorado Coal Power Plants Cycle More and Gas Plants Cycle Less As Colorado Renewables Surge

LITTLETON, Colo. - Jan. 18, 2018 - PRLog -- Renewable Impacts (RI) announced today that it has recently completed an initial assessment of power plant cycling in Colorado. The study spanned the 10 year period 2007 to 2016 and used the RI developed "movement" metric to assess cycling activity at fossil power plants in the State. The assessment addressed 50 coal and gas-fired units in 2007 and 66 coal and gas-fired units in 2016 using hourly production data from public sources.

The state specific research indicates that for a select group of Colorado fossil plants those fired with coal showed a substantial increase in cycling over the 10 year period while those fired with natural gas showed an unexpected decrease in cycling.

Using the "movement" metric for cycling, the study results indicate that steam turbines fired with coal experienced a 120% increase in cycling, combustion turbines fired with natural gas experienced a 15% decrease in cycling and combined cycle units firing natural gas experienced a 48% decrease in cycling activity. These cycling trends occurred during a period where variable Colorado wind and solar resources increased 670%.

"One common opinion in the power industry is that increasing variable renewable resources will cause increased fossil plant cycling but the greater flexibility of gas fired CTs and CCs will be able to handle it." said James R. Schetter, President of Renewable Impacts LLC. Mr. Schetter added, "Our initial assessment of the situation in Colorado is that just the opposite is happening with coal plants being called on to absorb much more of the wear and tear impacts of cycling while gas plants are somehow able to reduce their cycling duty. This suggests that down the road the costs of operating Colorado coal plants will surely increase and their reliability may decline."

Parties interested in specific Colorado plant details from this initial study should contact Mr. Schetter at 303-726-4828. For additional information on other RI cycling products and services see: http://www.renewableimpacts.com