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News
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LCG, September 30, 2025--Vistra Corp. announced yesterday that it will proceed with the next phase of its capital plan to support grid reliability in Texas. In 2024, Vistra identified over $1 billion worth of potential capital additions in generation capacity within the Texas ERCOT market by 2028 if market conditions were supportive. Now, with West Texas' growing power requirements, particularly the state's expanding oil and natural gas industries, Vistra reached a final investment decision and confirms it will build two new advanced natural gas-fired power units on-site at its Permian Basin Power Plant.
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LCG, September 24, 2025--Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. (ERCOT) yesterday announced its new initiative to increase its efforts to fully use and apply innovation and transformation through industry collaboration to best overcome the challenges and opportunities facing future grid operations. The new Grid Research, Innovation, and Transformation (GRIT) initiative will advance research and prototyping of emerging concepts and solutions to better understand the implications of rapid grid and technology evolution and position ERCOT to lead in the future energy landscape.
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Industry News
Xcel Announces Plans to Convert Electric Plant from Coal to Biomass
LCG, October 1, 2008--Xcel Energy Inc. yesterday announced plans to convert a coal-fired, electric generating unit to burn waste wood available primarily from forest harvesting operations. The unit will be the third converted to biomass at the Bay Front Power Plant in Ashland, Wisconsin.
Xcel will submit an application to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin to upgrade its Bay Front Power Plant. The estimated cost to modify the 30-year old plant is $55 to $70 million. The project schedule calls for construction to commence in 2010 and for operations to begin as early as late 2012.
In that biomass is generally considered a renewable, carbon-neutral fuel, the conversion of the power plant from coal to biomass should reduce the carbon emissions from Xcel's facilities.
According to the Xcel, the biomass project will be the first to use a gasification technology in the conversion of a coal-fired boiler at an existing base-load power plant. In the gasification process, biomass will react with a controlled amount of oxygen at high temperatures to create a synthetic gas (?syngas?) that is then used as a fuel in the boiler.
Xcel's announcement follows a number of other announcements to construct electric generating facilities fueled by biomass. Most recently, Oglethorpe Power Corporation (OPC) announced plans to construct as many as three, 100-MW power plants fueled by woody biomass. The design for the projects includes conventional fluidized bed boilers and steam turbine technology. The planned fuel supply will primarily be a mixture of forest harvest residues, chipped pulpwood, and waste materials from sawmills.
In August Georgia Power submitted a request to the Georgia Public Service Commission for approval to convert an aging, coal-fired unit at its Mitchell Generating Plant in Georgia to use wood wastes. The modified unit would use a direct-fire, stoker technology for a design capacity of 96 MW.
The Austin City Council in August approved a 20-year, power purchase agreement (PPA) with Nacogdoches Power LLC for the electricity generated from a 100-MW facility using a fluidized bed design and fueled with woody biomass. The project site is in Nacogdoches County, Texas. Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) is discussing a similar, 100-MW project with Nacogdoches Power LLC that could be constructed at the existing Deerhaven Generating Station near Gainesville, Florida.
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UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
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UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
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UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
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PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
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