(SVI Photo by Duke Dance – June 2023)

Dave Eskelsen, spokesperson for Rocky Mountain Power, called into the Weekday Wake-Up on SVI Radio to provide an update on the upcoming conversion from coal to natural gas for units 1 and 2 and the Naughton Power Plant Kemmerer.

(0:00) Weekday wake up on the SVI Radio Network, a chance to touch base with Rocky Mountain Power and get (0:05) an update on the Knotton Power Plant in Kemmerer. Dave Eskelson is the company spokesman for Rocky (0:10) Mountain Power. Dave, thank you so much for your time today.
Appreciate the update and a chance for (0:15) our Lincoln County listeners to hear from the source on what’s happening at the Knotton Power (0:19) Plant. Of course, Unit 3 has already been converted to natural gas. What’s the plan for Units 1 and 2? (0:26) Is that still to go to natural gas soon? Yeah, we’ve started construction on the (0:32) natural gas pipeline infrastructure and the natural gas supply contracts are in place (0:38) for operations on that fuel beginning in 2026.
Okay, so is there an estimated time in next year (0:47) where you feel like that change may officially happen or is that still in the air? (0:53) Well, I think it’ll probably take place, you know, soon after the first of the year (0:58) based on our other conversion projects for coal plants to natural gas fuel. It takes (1:04) some months to do that, so I think we’ll be ready, you know, pretty early in 2026. I don’t (1:10) have a date certain.
Sure. Dave, remind our listeners the reason for this change from Rocky (1:15) Mountain Power’s perspective and, of course, you know the importance of coal to the local community (1:21) in Kemmerer and southern Lincoln County and how long it’s been. Knotton’s been burning coal for a (1:26) long, long time, and so why the switch to natural gas here? Yeah, generally it’s been the result of (1:32) state and federal air quality policies.
Back in 2021, because of the direction of, you know, (1:44) both state and federal policy regarding air emissions, quite frankly, the expectation for (1:52) Knotton 1 and 2 was to be retired in 2026, but as those federal and state policies evolved (2:03) in the years since, it became clear that depending on which way, particularly federal policy swings, (2:14) we could continue to operate those units if they were converted to natural gas, and that’s very (2:20) similar to the reason that Knotton 3 was converted. It was in response to state and federal (2:28) air quality regulations. Speaking with Dave Eskelson this morning, company spokesman for (2:33) Rocky Mountain Power, when this conversion does take place on Units 1 and 2, will that result in (2:38) any changes in staff, or will all the employees currently there be able to stay on with the (2:44) conversion? How does that work? Well, when it’s clear, you know, again, based on our past experience, (2:50) that there is less equipment to maintain on units converted from coal to natural gas, (2:56) because there’s not the fuel handling infrastructure with natural gas as opposed to coal.
(3:03) But the company continually evaluates our workforce requirements, and we’ve known that (3:10) that this change was coming for a while. And so what we typically do is try to manage (3:17) workforce levels with normal attrition, and we have positions elsewhere in the company, (3:24) so we try to do that without direct layoffs. We try to rely on normal attrition to manage (3:30) our workforce levels.
Dave Eskelson with Rocky Mountain Power. Dave, appreciate your time. (3:35) Anything we missed that you’d like to mention today in regards to the Knotton Power plant in Kemmer? (3:40) Sure.
Well, when we take a look at our long-range planning every other year, we completely recast (3:47) our resource planning. And every time we do that, the focus of our work is to come up (3:55) with the least cost, least risk portfolio of resources to serve customers. And that’s, you know, (4:03) the term that we…how we use existing resources and how they’ll go into the future, (4:09) as well as new resources that may be necessary to serve our customers.
(4:14) And again, just here at the end, to reiterate, it sounds like that the process has already begun, (4:19) and the plan is still to convert to natural gas for those remaining two coal-fired generators (4:26) in Knotton, correct? That’s correct. (4:28) All right. Dave Eskelson this morning, company spokesman for Rocky Mountain Power on SBI Radio.