Vt. utilities join forces on future

Vt. utilities join forces on future

	Published : Thu, 01 Mar 2007 22:54 By : Agencies Print this Story

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Four Vermont electric utilities and a power purchase agency are joining forces in a bid to figure out what Vermont's future power generation sources should be.

Central Vermont Public Service Corp., Green Mountain Power Corp., the Washington and Vermont electric cooperatives and the Vermont Public Power Supply Authority announced Thursday they were looking for a consultant to study the issue.

CVPS spokesman Steve Costello said it's hoped the consultant will be able to report recommendations by the end of July.

'We are looking for a comprehensive study of the costs, infrastructure requirements, risks and other features of new generation that could be built in Vermont,' the utilities said in a joint statement. 'We need this comprehensive study so that we can determine how best to provide environmentally acceptable power to Vermonters at a competitive price.'

The move comes amid growing concern about where Vermont will get its electricity in the coming years.

Vermont currently gets about a third of its power under a contract between the utilities and the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant; another third comes under a similar arrangement with the hydropower-rich provincial utility Hydro-Quebec.

Vermont Yankee's current operating license and the utilities' power purchase contract with the plant expire in 2012. Vermont Yankee is seeking a 20-year license extension, but even if it gets it, that doesn't guarantee that Vermont's utilities will continue to get power from it at a competitive price.

Hydro-Quebec power flowing into Vermont phases out in the middle of the next decade. State and utility officials have expressed hope that Vermont be able to work out a new deal to continue getting Canadian power, but there are no guarantees there, either.

'I think this is timely. It's not like the utilities on their own have been ignoring where they are going to get their power from,' said Avram Patt, general manager of the Washington Electric Cooperative, based in East Montpelier. 'But I think people have decided there might be some benefit to doing this together and openly and publicly.'

The study will look at issues ranging from the cost and availability of fuels for various generation types to environmental impacts, to how well various parts of Vermont's transmission system would accommodate new power flow and how long it might take to get the new generation up and running.

'We want to look at what's possible, what's acceptable, where could you actually put more power into the system,' said Steve Costello, spokesman for CVPS.

The utilities have issued a request for proposals from firms that want to take on the study.