Texas Municipal Power Agency and Charah Solutions Finalizing Execution of Asset Purchase Agreement for the Gibbons Creek Steam Electric Station and Reservoir: Prospective Buyer Would Not Restart Coal Plant; Decommissioning Process Would Begin
DENTON, TX, Sept. 24, 2020 – The Texas Municipal Power Agency (“TMPA”), of which the City of Denton is a partial owner and beneficiary, has issued a joint press release with Charah Solutions announcing they are finalizing execution of an asset purchase agreement for the Gibbons Creek Steam Electric Station and Reservoir.
A municipally owned utility, TMPA was created in 1975 by the cities of Bryan, Denton, Garland, and Greenville, Texas (the “Member Cities”), for the purposes of generating, selling, and transmitting electric power, on a wholesale basis, to the Member Cities. TMPA constructed and owns:
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the retired Gibbons Creek Steam Electric Station (the “Power Plant”),
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an adjacent 11,000-acre lignite mine, which is undergoing mine reclamation operations (the “Mine”), and
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an electric transmission system, consisting of hundreds of miles of transmission lines, and associated electrical substations, located in the vicinities of the Power Plant and the Member Cities (the “Transmission System”).
The transaction being considered will involve the conveyance to Gibbons Creek Environmental Redevelopment Group, LLC (“CCERG”), a subsidiary of Charah Solutions, Inc., of the Power Plant site, a 6,166-acre area that includes the retired Power Plant, cooling reservoir, and associated landfills and ash ponds. Not included in the conveyance, and to be reserved to TMPA, are the Mine and the Transmission System.
GCERG will be responsible for the shutdown and decommissioning of the retired Power Plant, as well as for the performance of the environmental remediation and closure operations, associated with the Power Plant’s landfills, and ash ponds. The transaction is expected to save TMPA and its Member Cities millions of dollars in avoided environmental remediation costs.
While GCERG’s site redevelopment options do not include a re-opening of the Power Plant, which shall be decommissioned, they do include renewable energy, agricultural, commercial or industrial redevelopment opportunities.
This transaction is still in the negotiation stage. Once negotiations are completed, and a final agreement is posted for consideration and action by the TMPA Board, the proposed agreement will become public information, and additional details of the transaction will be available for public consideration. The agreement will not be finalized until it is considered and approved by the governing bodies of the Member Cities.
Contact: Ryan Adams, (940) 349-8565, Ryan.Adams@cityofdenton.com