CPS ENERGY statement in response to the Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. report prepared for Sierra Club
The Sierra Club released a report prepared by Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. on June 25, 2019, below is CPS Energy’s response to this report.
CPS Energy is committed to providing power that is reliable, affordable, safe, secure, resilient and environmentally responsible for our customers and community. As we further bridge into renewables, our existing power plant capacity, including coal, is important to this mission and helps protect customers from high prices. Although we still have coal in our portfolio, we recently shut down two older coal units 15 years ahead of schedule and are looking at new capacity for the future. While the daily, monthly, and yearly market power prices can go up and down, the investment in these units is meant to provide stability for the long term. In fact, Fiscal Year 2019 was a great year. Our net income was $168 million, driven chiefly by the performance of all the plants. Our Flexible Path strategy provides a rigorous resource planning process that considers new technology such as energy storage to address the weather dependent nature of renewables – power isn’t produced by this technology when the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow. Importantly, relevant to energy storage (batteries) the pricing still needs to come down to be affordable for our customers. This is the second report issued by this organization in the last 24 months, and there are numerous assumptions that forecast both high and low results. Interestingly, page 5 of the report states, “Over the full 2019-2040 period, Spruce 2 is projected to generate NPV net revenues of $448 million.” We look forward to reviewing this report more closely and working with all stakeholders, including the environmental community, to develop other helpful analyses and the specific actions we will take along our Flexible Path. |

This is an excerpt from page 30 of CPS Energy’s FY 2019 Basic Financial Statements.