Power Project Gains New Backer Cogentrix Joins Btu Energy To Develop Rathdrum Prairie Power Plant
The developer of a 215-megawatt power plant in Rathdrum has found a partner to help bring the $140 million project to life.
Cogentrix Energy Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., will join Btu Energy Inc. to form Rathdrum Generation Partners, the companies announced Wednesday.
Construction of the natural gas-fired plant could begin this spring, with power generation by late 1997, said R.H. Kilgore of Bellevue, Wash.,-based Btu Energy.
But construction hinges on securing the necessary loans. Cogentrix can make that possible by finding buyers for the plant’s power, said Kurt Humphrey, vice president of development out of Cogentrix’s new Portland office.
The partners will determine the ownership split when a loan comes through, said spokesman Jef Freeman.
The potential $140 million project ranks as probably the largest private investment in Kootenai County, said Bob Potter of Jobs Plus Inc. Potter handles business recruitment in the county, but he didn’t have to lead Congentrix to the Btu project.
Freeman said the intersection of natural gas lines and power lines at the Btu Energy site and the favorable market for power here made the project very attractive.
Nearby, WWP fired up a 176-megawatt natural gas turbine in January to meet some of the region’s demand for more power.
Kootenai Electric Cooperative is among the utilities looking for potential alternatives to the Bonneville Power Administration.
The Rathdrum Generation project is one of dozens of projects bidding for a piece of that business.
“This investment on our part is a bet that the market will still be there for power and that this Power plant will be able to produce it competitively,” Freeman said.
Since the plant takes only about 30 employees to run, there will be little or no impact on schools and infrastructure like there would have been had Micron Technology Inc. located its 4,000-job plant in Post Falls, Potter said.
“This will definitely take some pressure off our residential property taxpayers down the road,” he said. “And it will do so with very little impact.”
Residents near the plant site complained bitterly about its emissions, but the state Department of Environmental Quality said the gases would fall within standards and approved an air quality permit Jan. 31.
One of the nation’s biggest independent power generators, Cogentrix is developing a 240-megawatt power plant near Vancouver, Wash. It owns 10 other mostly coal-fired plants in North Carolina and Virginia.