'Just because we request to shut down a unit in particular does not mean ERCOT won’t require us to extend operations,” said Benny Etheridge, CPS Energy’s executive vice president of energy supply.
to shutter one unit, known as Spruce 1, by 2030 and plans to convert the other unit, Spruce 2, to natural gas by 2028. However, CPS Energy must get the okay from ERCOT, which manages the state’s electrical grid, before doing so, said Benny Etheridge, CPS Energy’s executive vice president of energy supply.
Garza said the utility needs more direction from its board of trustees on the future of its generation portfolio to answer that question. Each Spruce unit contributes roughly 700 megawatts of generation, a CPS Energy spokeswoman said. If its current schedule of, CPS Energy will drop roughly 3,000 megawatts of fossil fuel generation out of its portfolio by 2030. One megawatt is enough electricity to power 200 Texas homes on a summer day.