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Another Extended Outage at Xcel’s Notoriously Unreliable Comanche 3 Coal Plant Spurs Request to Delay Comanche 2 Retirement

BOULDER, Colo. —  Western Resource Advocates expressed concern for both Xcel ratepayers and the environment following today’s submission of a petition to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission by Xcel Energy and state agencies that would keep Comanche 2, a coal plant in Pueblo, operational for a year beyond its planned Dec. 31, 2025, retirement date in order to meet the need created by yet another extended outage at the company’s Comanche 3 plant.    

Market forces are a primary factor driving the retirement of coal units around the nation. Like most still in operation, the half-century old Comanche 2 unit is an outdated, expensive resource and a burden on Colorado ratepayers. If kept operational past its closure date, Comanche 2 will cost Coloradans more than $35 million in additional annualized costs by the end of 2028, according to a recent analysis by Grid Strategies. Any costs associated with the continued operation of Comanche Unit 2 would be in addition to the significant anticipated costs associated with repairing the currently offline Comanche 3. 

In the petition, Xcel and the state cited the temporary closure of the Comanche 3 coal plant as the triggering event that led to this proposal.  

The 750-megawatt Comanche 3, the state’s largest coal plant, is currently offline and not expected to resume operations until June 2026. Comanche 3 has a history of technical problems that have forced it to unexpectedly go offline for parts or all of 138 days for the two years beginning in early August 2023. The Commission has in the past expressed deep dissatisfaction with Xcel’s persistent failure to disclose timely information about problems with the plant’s operations. 

Xcel and Colorado have been planning for the retirement of Comanche Unit 2 since 2018, when the Colorado PUC first approved a December 2025 retirement date for the plant. At the time, the agency found that closing the unit was in the public interest and would net annual savings of $200 million. 

Keeping Comanche 2 online with no requirement to limit operations even if Comanche 3 resumes generating electricity also creates a risk of additional pollution.    

“WRA will be reviewing this petition carefully, with a focus on reducing the potential environmental and economic harm” said Overturf. “Will regulators determine ratepayers should no longer be paying for the outage-plagued Comanche 3 plant? Time will tell.”