Great River Energy is closing its power plant at Stanton in Mercer County, North Dakota.
Lyndon Anderson is a communication spokesman for Great River Energy. He says the Stanton Station has provided electricity to Great River's member cooperatives for 50 years, and the decision to close the station was a very difficult one. He says the decision is directly tied to current market conditions.
"Earlier this spring, we went on economic dispatch where we ran only when it made sense to run, where we can generate revenue to cover our costs. Before that we were running 24-7, but then we switched to economic dispatched and we've done that since then. The market outlook is not good in the future where it looked like we could recover all our costs to our revenues, and we had to make the very, very difficult decision to close the plant by May of 2017."
Anderson says careful efforts are being taken to minimize impacts on the Stanton Station's 65 employees. He says the plant will continue to run until the closure. Once the plant is closed, plans for decommission will begin. Great River Energy continues to operate the Coal Creek Station power plant northeast of Stanton, as well as the Spiritwood Station near Jamestown. Anderson says neither of those plants will be affected, and that Great River plans to remain a "committed partner" in North Dakota's energy industry.
The Stanton Station began operating in 1966 and has a generating capacity of 189 megawatts.
