Will it ever end?
Mississippi Power Company said last week that its Kemper County power plant will be delayed yet another month.
The latest delay, which was confirmed Friday, pushes the plant price tag over $7 billion. Of the most recent nearly $52 million increase caused by the delay, the unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. says shareholders will pay $34 million. Ratepayers could be asked to pay the rest.
As previously reported, the plant and associated coal mine was originally supposed to be finished in May 2014 and cost $2.9 billion at most. Customers are already paying for more than $1 billion in assets that are generating power using natural gas and could be asked to pay as much as $4.2 billion overall, if regulators approve. Shareholders have absorbed nearly $2.7 billion in losses.
Mississippi Power had already warned that completing the plant was likely to push past the previous Dec. 31 deadline. On Friday, the company confirmed it now aims to put the plant into commercial operation by Jan. 31, which given past history seems like a stretch.
The idea behind the state-of-the art facility is to make it possible to remove carbon dioxide from synthetic gas made from lignite coal. This will help cut carbon dioxide emissions that are generally extremely high for coal-powered facilities. The plant has been making power using natural gas since 2014 and has now made electricity by burning synthetic gas from each of two gasifiers.
The next step is to synchronize the two units that gasify lignite coal. Mississippi Power has tested them individually, but has not yet attempted to run them at the same time, mainly because of a small supply of nitrogen. The plant will have to have an extremely large supply of nitrogen to start up the gasifiers, which the on-site nitrogen production plant cannot fully supply.
Like I have said before, the idea behind the plant is brilliant and needs to happen. However, the customers should not have to pay for the company’s mistakes. You do not get to choose your electricity provider, so if the customers have to foot the bill, it could have an adverse effect on local economies.
–
Joseph Brown is the editor and publisher of The Star-Herald. He can be reached at jbrown@starherald.net.
