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Board of Public Utilities Discussion on the Carbon Free Power Project
Recommended Action
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Staff Recommendation
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Los Alamos County became a member of the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and specifically a participant in the Resource Project on April 16, 2014. DPU staff has been following the development of the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), which is a projected 600MW small modular reactor (SMR) facility. As it is being designed, the facility would house up to twelve NuScale nuclear power modules, each capable of generating up to fifty megawatts of electric power for a total plant capacity of 600MW.
The CFPP is under consideration by LAC as a potential replacement base load power resource after retirement of the County’s coal generation assets as early as 2022 and as a step towards meeting our goal of being a carbon neutral electric utility by 2040.
In August of 2015, BPU and CC approved an agreement allowing DPU to participate in the CFPP Study Phase and Siting Agreement with UAMPS also referred to as the fatal flaw analysis. The approved budget for this study phase was $145,540.00 to be shared by DOE-LANL and LAC on an approximate 80/20 split, respectively. No fatal flaws were discovered in this phase, clearing the path for continued development. However, it was subsequently determined that DOE-LANL is unable to participate any further with LAC in the CFPP through the existing electric coordination agreement. Future costs would therefore be wholly the responsibility of LAC, unless some other form of participation agreement can be agreed upon with DOE.
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In 2017 DPU completed an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) comparing all of the options to serve the County’s Electric Demand on a Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) basis, while meeting our carbon neutral goal. The IRP identified solar with storage as having the lowest LCOE among the options considered. The CFPP came in second at approximately 3.5% higher cost bas...
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