News
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
Big Stone II Coal Project Canceled
LCG, November 4, 2009--MDU Resources Group Inc. (MDU) announced Monday that the Big Stone II Project, a proposed coal-fired electric generating unit, and its associated transmission upgrades, will not be built. The proposed unit was sited adjacent to the existing, 450-MW Big Stone facility located near the Minnesota-South Dakota border.
Montana-Dakota Utilities (a subsidiary of MDU) President and Chief Executive Officer stated, "We will now look at other supply options that are reliable and cost-beneficial for our customers. We have plans to expand our wind production by 30 megawatts in 2010 and will review other generation options."
The Big Stone II project was estimated to cost about $1.6 billion, excluding transmission upgrades, and the operational date had been delayed to late 2015.
In June 2005, seven utilities announced their plan to develop a 630-MW unit that would be operational by 2011. In 2007, two of the utilities, Great River Energy and Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, withdrew from the project, leaving five co-owners: Otter Tail Power Co., Central Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, Heartland Consumers Power District, Missouri River Energy Services and Montana-Dakota Utilities.
On January 22, 2009, the last day the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could act on the permit, the EPA issued a written objection to the South Dakota Department of Natural Resources approval of the permit for the project that created a new hurdle for the project.
In September of this year, Otter Tail Power Company President and CEO stated that the broad economic downturn, coupled with a high level of uncertainty associated with proposed federal climate legislation and existing federal environmental regulation, have resulted in challenging credit and equity markets that make proceeding with Big Stone II at this time untenable for Otter Tail?s customers and shareholders.
On Monday, the remaining partners announced that the plant would not be built.
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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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