Colorado Springs' Drake plant to stop using coal

Colorado Springs Utilities will stop burning coal at its Martin Drake plant in September, and plans to run the plant on natural gas from 2 September through 31 December 2022.

The plant is scheduled to get its last coal delivery in August, Colorado Springs said.

Closing the facility is part of the utility's plan to reduce CO2 by 80pc by 2030.

Colorado Springs also plans to bring six smaller natural gas turbines on to the plant site early next year to provide generation to Denver, Colorado, to cover for the lost capacity from the coal plant while the utility continues to build a transmission line between the Drake plant and Colorado Springs' Kelker substation and increases solar and wind generation.

"The gas turbines are going to give us the extra generation that we need to power our downtown area, but they are only going to be there through 2025," the utility explained. After that, the gas turbines will be relocated to other sites in the Colorado Springs area.

"We are still looking at possibly putting some of them on our local military installations," Colorado Springs said. The utility is also building a new Advanced Technologies Campus, which is going to be on the Eastern side of the city, and it might be putting some of the generators there.

The utility does not have all of the locations finalized yet.

The Drake plant took 56,145 short tons (50,933 metric tonnes) from Peabody Energy's North Antelope Rochelle mine from January to April 2021, according to US Energy Information Administration fuel receipts data.

By Elena Vasilyeva