Salt River Project will convert its portion of the coal-powered Springerville generating station to natural gas.
The announcement comes a few months after Tucson Electric Power said it would do the same to its own portion of the Springerville plant.
It’s the second coal to gas conversion SRP has announced in recent months, the other being its units at Coronado Generating Station near St. Johns in Eastern Arizona.
Salt River Project said it considered other alternatives, such as building a new natural gas plant, but concluded converting their existing units at Springerville was the most cost-effective option.
That conversion comes with a $60 million price tag. That doesn’t include the price of building a pipeline to supply natural gas to the generating station.
Bill McClellan with SRP says the company is looking to double its generating capacity in the next 10 years.
“The role that natural gas plays is that’s a firm resource that’s available 24/7 around the clock. And that helps us really in that reliability space. So it can provide round-the-clock electricity to firm up variable resources like solar or like wind,” McClellan said.
As SRP turns away from coal, officials say natural gas will be used as a bridge to other energy options that could take years to develop, like new nuclear generation.
