The Omaha Public Power District, a publicly owned, business-managed electric utility, planned to delay the expansion, since the recent forecasts of power usage showed that it would not be necessary in 2014.
The District had planned to commence construction in 2010. The decision to delay would take approximately $27m out of the 2010 capital budget. The District would complete the work it had begun on a well field for the project and continue preliminary transmission studies so those portions would be ready when the expansion is revisited.
Dale Widoe, vice president of OPPD, who oversees this area, said: “As soon as we realized it would not be necessary to spend the money next year, we decided to take it out of the budget so our customer-owners would not be paying for generation before it was needed.”
The Cass County Peaking Station was built with possible expansion in mind. Like the other two peaking plants operated by OPPD, it runs only during times of high electricity use. The delayed project would have converted the current natural-gas-powered units into a combined cycle plant able to capture waste heat from the existing combustion turbines and use it to generate additional electricity. It would then have operated more often.
Presently, the peaking plant generates approximately 320MW of electricity. The change would have enabled the plant to generate an additional 210MW.
