FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 31, 2012
Contact: Jenna Garland, (404) 607-1262 x 222
Cyrus Reed, (512) 740-4086
ERCOT Makes Right Call
Council Will Allow
Monticello Coal Plant to Idle
AUSTIN, TX – The Electric
Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) announced today that TXU is approved to
idle its Monticello coal plant. ERCOT determined that taking the plant offline
for the winter months will not cause any reliability issues for Texas’s
electrical grid.
"ERCOT's decision not to
issue any Reliability Must Run (RMR) payments for TXU's Monticello Plant shows
that we don't need the power from this antiquated plant in the winter and
spring," said Cyrus Reed, Acting Chapter Director of the Lone Star Chapter
of the Sierra Club. "Now, we all must work to grow new resources like
solar, coastal wind and energy storage, as well as demand response so we can responsibly
phase out Texas's largest, oldest, and dirtiest coal plants, which continue to harm
human health, dirty our air and waste our water resources."
The Monticello coal plant,
located in Titus County, is one of the state’s top sources of soot and smog
emissions, which directly contributes to high smog, or ozone, levels in the
Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. In fall 2011, TXU had threatened to idle the
plant if new Environmental Protection Agency clean air standards were
implemented. These standards were never implemented, yet TXU announced their
plans to idle the plant during the winter months of this year because cheap
natural gas and strong Texas wind power had driven down electricity prices. TXU’s
parent company, Energy Future Holdings, released its earnings report for the
third quarter of 2012 with more than $400 million in losses. This is the
seventh consecutive quarter of losses.
“These aging, dirty plants
can’t compete with newer, cleaner sources like Texas wind,” said Reed.
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