A decommissioning study of Colorado Springs’ downtown power plant took another step forward with the selection of a global consulting firm to help guide the initial stages of the process.Navigant Consulting, which touts “business pragmatism” in highly regulated industries like energy, will advise a task force co-chaired by City Councilwomen and Utilities Board members Lisa Czelatdko and Brandy Williams.The task force will develop a request for proposals for a decommissioning study of the Martin Drake Power Plant and then evaluate the responses and pick a winner — if all goes according to schedule — by March.The study itself is expected to be completed before the end of 2013.Czelatdko and Williams picked Navigant and are in the process of selecting who will serve on the 11- to 13-member task force, Williams said Friday.Nearly 100 people applied to serve on the task force, and Williams said she and Czelatdko plan to ask the full City Council to endorse their nominations Jan. 8.The task force’s work and the study will put many questions about the power plant to rest, Williams said.“The reason this study needs to be done and should have been done prior to spending $150 million on the Drake power plant is because these are ratepayer dollars,” she said, referring to city-owned Colorado Springs Utilities, which owns the power plant.“Is it more cost effective to decommission Drake and then build a new power source or is it more cost effective to pay whatever it costs … to keep Drake open?” she asked. “We need answers to these questions so that we as ratepayers and as the board know the cost that we could potentially incur depending upon the path that we take with this power plant.”Williams said formulating a thorough request for proposals to conduct the decommissioning study is critical to the process and that Navigant was selected for its expertise in that arena.Navigant was one of four bidders, Utilities spokesman Dave Grossman said.“They were awarded an ‘intent to award a contract’ so there’s no contract yet,” he said.Laurie Oppel, managing director at Navigant, said the company brings technical and business expertise.“We do a fair amount of work with respect to integrated resource planning and also portfolio optimization, so what is the best way to serve the load within the region,” she said.“Many utilities and many load serving entities want to go beyond least-cost planning, so are we looking at reduction in toxic air emissions? Are we looking perhaps at job creation, economic development, etcetera? So we help utilities look at how they want to optimize their portfolio, which truly is beyond least-cost planning any more,” she said.“There are other variables that they also want to meet.”

Photo by