Lamar Repowering Project’s creative melding of old and new wins Marmaduke Award

The ultimate power plant maintenance effort is a repowering project. This year’s Marmaduke Award winner demonstrates that sometimes the most creative solutions to repowering projects can be achieved by small generators. But there was nothing small about the scope of work undertaken by the Arkansas River Power Authority (ARPA) and Lamar Light and Power (LL&P). What’s more, the service they provide is no small thing to those they serve.

Small is beautiful

There are more than 2,900 public power systems and rural electric cooperatives in the U.S. serving about 27% of the nation’s electric customers, according to the American Public Power Association. Public power is transmitted in every state except Hawaii, so chances are you or your neighbor enjoys electricity service from a locally owned and operated power provider. If so, you also enjoy rates that are an average of almost 15% less than those charged by the nation’s 217 investor-owned utilities.

Colorado has an interesting blend of power providers: Investor-owned utilities account for 55% of energy sales in the state, rural electric cooperatives provide 28%, and publicly owned utilities provide the remaining 17%. The common challenge facing these providers is that demand is expected to grow almost 60% in the next 17 years, according to the state’s public utility commission. How to build more capacity in an environmentally responsible manner while keeping a lid on mounting capital costs weighs on the mind of every generator. Colorado does have one advantage few other states enjoy: moderate electric rates compared to the national average, because 80% of its energy is produced from coal.

The common thread among small Colorado municipal utilities—most formed years ago to supply power and water to the state’s 30 million acres of farmland—is that they are ill-equipped to be competitive in today’s highly interconnected, mega-utility business environment. Their answer was to form confederations that share the output of their generating stations in order to cope with rising energy demand and wield more purchasing power in wholesale power markets. Many own gas- or oil-fired facilities that are uneconomic now that fuel costs are high compared to the cost of wholesale power available to municipalities.

ARPA, located in southeastern Colorado, was formed in 1979 by seven municipalities: Holly, Springfield, La Junta, Trinidad, Lamar, and Las Animas in Colorado and Raton, New Mexico (Figure 1). Each member municipality continues to own and operate its electric system and distributes electric power within its service area but commits to purchase all its needed wholesale energy from ARPA. ARPA is able to contract for the additional wholesale power needs of its members from a variety sources and has funded construction of various plants (mostly gas-fired) for its member over the past 25 years.