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Minnesota PUC Approves Operations Extension for Xcel Energy's Prairie Island Nuclear Plant

LCG, August 15, 2025--Xcel Energy announced that the company received state approval yesterday from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to extend operations of the Prairie Island nuclear plant through the early 2050s. Prairie Island has two units that have a combined generating capacity of 1,100 MW. The units’ current operating licenses expire in 2033 and 2034.

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PGE Announces Addition of 475 MW of Battery Energy Storage Systems to Improve Grid Reliability and Costs

LCG, August 7, 2025--Portland General Electric (PGE) today announced the completion of three, four-hour lithium-ion utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Oregon, adding 475 MW and more than 1.9 GWh of dispatchable capacity to serve the Portland metro area. Each of these BESS facilities can deliver power during peak demand or when other electric generating facilities are limited, which improves system flexibility, reliability and costs.

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Industry News

Third New Coal-fired Unit Planned for Sunflower's Holcomb Station

LCG, July 11, 2006--Sunflower Electric Power Corporation yesterday announced that its Board of Directors and the Board of Directors of Golden Spread Electric Cooperative approved a Letter of Intent (LOI) that will result in Golden Spread's ownership interest of not less than 400 MW of the planned 700 MW Holcomb East unit to be built at Sunflower's Holcomb Station site near Holcomb, Kansas. Plans are underway to build two other 700-MW units that would be owned by Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Inc. Sunflower would operate and maintain all of the new units.

Sunflower stated that it expects to name additional participants in the new unit shortly and that the agreement will require the approval of both the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), and the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC).

Holcomb Station became operational in 1983 and has a generating capacity of 360 MW. The plant now burns low-sulfur coal mined in Wyoming?s Powder River Basin and delivered to the plant by rail.

All three new units would employ a supercritical, pulverized coal technology and would leverage existing facilities, such as the rail spur and systems for coal handling, waste treatment, and water treatment. The new units will use also use low-sulfur coal from Wyoming and feature best available control technologies.

Construction is scheduled to begin in mid-2007, with the Tri-State units scheduled for construction beginning in mid-2008 and 2009. The units are expected to be on-line in mid-2011, 2012, and 2013, respectively. Tri-State will serve as the construction manager for all three new units.

Sunflower filed an application for an air permit for three new units with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and Sunflower anticipates public hearings to be held in October.

Tri-State has previously stated that it plans to invest $2.5 billion in the two new units, plus $700 million for up to 550 miles of 345-kV transmission lines stretching from the plant into eastern Colorado.
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