By Chris Hansen
A Timely Reminder That Coal No Longer Pencils Out Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association announced it has been ordered by the U.S. Department of Energy to keep Craig Generating Station Unit 1 available to operate for the next 90 days, just two days before the unit was scheduled to retire. The announcement is a timely reminder of a hard reality for rural electric cooperatives: when aging coal plants are kept alive past their economic life, local members pay the price.
Craig Unit 1 is a 446-megawatt coal unit built in 1979 is not operational due to equipment failure and has been scheduled for retirement for years. Restarting it will require significant repairs, ongoing maintenance, fuel purchases, and regulatory compliance. According to analysis cited by Utility Dive, simply making the unit available to operate for the 90-day DOE order is estimated to cost roughly $21 million with additional extensions potentially adding tens of millions more. That’s not speculation, it’s reality. I toured the Craig plant during my time in the state legislature and saw firsthand the condition of the facility and the level of work required to keep it running.
The math simply doesn’t work anymore.
Coal plants carry high fixed costs even when they run less often. As plants age, breakdowns become more frequent and repairs more expensive. Fuel and transportation costs remain volatile. Handling coal ash and mitigating air pollution adds another layer of cost. When a plant operates intermittently or is held on standby, those fixed costs don’t disappear; they are spread across fewer megawatt-hours, driving costs higher every time the plant is restarted. Emergency federal orders don’t change those economics: they amplify them.
Large utilities may be able to absorb those costs across millions of customers. Rural electric cooperatives like LPEA cannot. Craig Unit 1 is jointly owned by multiple utilities, and Tri-State leadership has acknowledged that the costs of complying with the DOE order will ultimately be borne by its member systems unless alternative cost-sharing mechanisms are found. For rural members, every unexpected expense shows up directly on monthly bills, affecting families, farmers, and small businesses already operating on tight margins.
LPEA’s mission is to provide safe, reliable, and affordable power while being responsible stewards of our members’ money. Our strategic goals emphasize predictable costs, long-term reliability, transparency, and local control. From that perspective, continued reliance on aging coal plants is not just expensive, it’s unsustainable.
That reality drove LPEA’s decision to exit its wholesale power contract, effective in April. The contract limited our ability to manage risk locally and exposed our members to the rising costs of legacy generation assets whose economics continue to deteriorate. This decision was made after careful risk and economic analysis, not because of politics, but because the numbers no longer penciled out.
Reliability still matters deeply. But reliability today comes from flexibility, efficiency, and resources that can adapt without locking rural communities into decades of high fixed costs. Notably, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) had previously approved Craig Unit 1’s retirement after finding that its closure would not compromise grid reliability, underscoring how extraordinary this federal intervention is. Tri-State’s announcement makes one thing clear: when federal or regional actions require new spending on coal plants already slated for retirement, someone must pay. Rural members should not be expected to carry that burden indefinitely.
Responsible leadership means recognizing when an asset has reached the end of its useful life and choosing a path that keeps power reliable, bills predictable, and decisions closer to home.