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Vistra is pursuing deals with data center developers in Texas and the PJM region to address the industry’s energy needs at multiple sites, executives revealed during the company’s third-quarter earnings […]
The post Vistra in Talks to Expand Power for Data Centers Through Nuclear, Gas Options appeared first on POWER Magazine.
The Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California, already the largest utility-scale battery storage development in the world, is adding more capacity. Vistra, the Texas-based energy company that lists Luminant, TXU Energy, and Dynegy among its subsidiaries, on Jan. 24 said it would further expand Moss Landing, adding a new 350-MW/1,400-MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) at the site.
The additional storage will complement the existing 400-MW/1,600-MWh of storage already at Moss Landing. Vistra on Monday said it has entered into a 15-year resource adequacy agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) for the new capacity. Vistra in a Jan. 21 filing asked the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to approve the contract.
“Through this partnership with PG&E, Vistra is bringing its capabilities and expertise to lead the clean energy transition and provide much-needed electricity to the people of California,” said Curt Morgan, Vistra CEO. “These innovative battery energy storage systems are necessary to maintain electric grid reliability as increasing levels of intermittent renewable power are integrated into the electric grid.”…
Energy Transfer, a major pipeline firm that threatened to terminate natural gas service to five Vistra Corp. gas-fired power plants in Texas next week as part of a $ 21.3 million penalty payment standoff, has relaxed its ultimatum, though the underlying dispute continues.
In a letter filed with the Texas Railroad Commission late on Jan. 20, the midstream and intrastate transportation and storage giant said it reached an agreement with Vistra subsidiaries Luminant Energy Co. and Dynegy Marketing to “temporarily maintain natural gas service” through March 31, 2022, not Jan. 23, as it had threatened.
However, Energy Transfer subsidiaries Energy Transfer Fuel (ETF) and Oasis Pipeline will continue to sell natural gas to the Vistra subsidiaries under terms and conditions that have been place since Dec. 1, 2021. It will mean that Luminant will keep buying natural gas for power generation at daily spot prices.
Luminant in a complaint filed with the Railroad Commission—Texas’s oil and gas regulator—on Jan.…
The post Vistra Backs Illinois Transition Measure to Keep At-Risk Coal Plants Online Through 2025 appeared first on POWER Magazine.
Bleeding financially from underperforming and legally burdened coal generation in downstate Illinois and elsewhere, Vistra, the nation’s largest competitive generator, has renewed its call for passage of the Illinois Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Act, a bill that could help keep 2.2 GW of existing at-risk capacity online through 2025 while the state expands its renewable and storage capacity.
The Irving, Texas–headquartered company said it renewed its support for the bill owing to “mounting financial and legal pressures that now come from operating coal plants.” The announcement came as the company accelerated the closure of the 1.2-GW Joppa Power Plant in September 2022—three years earlier than previously disclosed—to settle a complaint related to pollution exceedances in Illinois.
The Joppa plant, which opened in 1953, has six coal units with a combined capacity of 1 GW, as well as five natural gas units with a combined capacity of 239 MW.…
The post Vistra Will Close Another Illinois Coal Plant appeared first on POWER Magazine.
A Vistra Energy subsidiary on Sept. 16 said it will close the nearly 60-year-old E.D. Edwards coal-fired plant in Bartonville, Illinois, by year-end 2022 under a settlement between the company and environmental groups the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Respiratory Health Association. The groups made a joint announcement Monday of the agreement.
The environmental groups had sued in 2013 in an attempt to force the plant to adhere to emissions regulations. Vistra, in its second-quarter 2019 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, said a bench trial in the case had been scheduled for the end of September. “We dispute the allegations and will defend the case vigorously,” the company said in the SEC filing earlier this year, prior to the settlement.
Vistra’s Illinois power-generation unit—Illinois Power Resources Generating (IPRG), an affiliate of Vistra-owned Luminant—in a statement Monday said: “The proposed settlement resolves a long-running lawsuit while providing three years of certainty for the more than 70 employees working at the Edwards plant and, importantly, a transition period for the community to plan for the plant closure.…
Vistra Energy moved to halt a financial hemorrhage stemming from unprofitable conditions in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), announcing plans to shutter two more coal-fired power plants—the 1.1-GW Sandow Power Plant (which includes a 2009-built unit) and the 1.2-GW Big Brown plant—in early 2018.
The company’s decision made public on October 13 comes on the heels of an announcement last week by Vistra Energy subsidiary Luminant to shutter its 1.9-GW coal-fired Monticello plant in Titus County.
Vistra Energy said the coal plant closures are necessary because they are “economically challenged in the competitive ERCOT market.” Specifically, it said, “Sustained low wholesale power prices, an oversupplied renewable generation market, and low natural gas prices, along with other factors, have contributed to this decision.”
“This announcement is a difficult one to make,” said Vistra Energy President and CEO Curt Morgan. “It is never easy to announce an action that has a significant impact on our people. Though the long-term economic viability of these plants has been in question for some time, our year-long analysis indicates this announcement is now necessary.”…