Edison to decommission Mohave power plant

The company closed the coal-fired facility in Laughlin NV in 2006 because it needed expensive upgrades.



Associated Press
Los Angeles Times

The owners of the closed Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., said Wednesday that they would decommission the coal-fired power plant, which once supplied electricity to 1.5 million homes.

Southern California Edison Co. operated the 1,580-megawatt plant since it came online in 1971, and the company owned 56% of the facility on the Colorado River.

Edison shut down the plant in 2006 because it needed pollution-control upgrades to comply with a 1999 Clean Air Act settlement, a new water supply and pipeline upgrades costing $1.1 billion.

The plant's owners said they would decommission the plant and remove the generating facility from the site. Its operating permits will be terminated next year.

The utility is considering selling the property or constructing a renewable-energy project. Edison spokesman Gil Alexander said the utility had studied the property, its topography and the climate to determine whether it would be suitable for a renewable project, but no decisions had been made.

Roger Clark, air and energy director for the Grand Canyon Trust in Flagstaff, Ariz., one of the groups that sued over pollution controls, said he was pleased that the owners would dismantle the plant and were considering renewable energy.

"It's the final chapter on the story of Mohave as a coal plant," Clark said. "Until the owners decided to go ahead and decommission it and take it apart, there was always a chance someone could buy it and crank it up again."

Edison had planned to upgrade and restart the power plant but said in June 2006 that the plant needed too many repairs for the effort to go forward.

The Salt River Project, which owns 20% of the plant, later sought to take over operation from Edison but abandoned the effort in 2007 after its offer to buy Edison's ownership interest was rebuffed.

Other owners of the plant included Nevada Power Co. with 14% and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power with 10%.