CHICAGO - The head of the company that operates a controversial, largely municipal bond-financed Midwestern coal plant has resigned and a national search for a replacement is planned.
Until a replacement is found for Peter DeQuattro, who was president and chief executive officer, the Prairie State Generating Company tapped its chairman Duncan Kincheloe, who also is chief executive director of the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission. The alliance is one of eight non-profit public power utilities that helped finance the coal-fired plant in Illinois.
The southern Illinois plant has come under fire for construction delays and cost overruns that drove up the price for energy beyond what public utilities had expected to pay when they bought into the project.
In a May 16 statement announcing the resignation, the PSGC Management Committee thanked DeQuattro for his six years of service in the position. Marc Gerken, president and CEO American Municipal Power PSGC vice chair, will lead a nationwide search for a replacement.
DeQuattro sought to highlight the company's achievements despite questions over the plant's high construction costs and higher than expected costs to its local government participants.
"We've built a major new organization, two state-of-the-art supercritical power plants, and a great mining operation during my years with Prairie State," DeQuattro said in the statement. "This month's successful shakedown testing of Unit 2 with the Illinois EPA makes it a good time to thank my team at Prairie State and look for a new challenge."
Kincheloe said the project would stand the test of time.
"While the current state of the electric markets temporarily mask the effects of the reduced supply as other plants are retired for economic and environmental reasons, the Prairie State project was designed and built to comply with all current environmental regulations," Kincheloe said. "Rising gas prices and western coal's rail delivery issues won't be problems at Prairie State."
The Prairie State Energy Campus -- which includes an adjacent mine and a plant that generates 1600 megawatts of power -- is located in Washington County.
American Municipal Power Inc. disclosed last year it had received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission tied to the project, according to city of Cleveland public documents obtained by an environmental group by Ohio Citizen Action.
The request was made just days before the disclosure in regulatory filings by Peabody Energy Corp. — the company that led efforts to develop the joint power agency-owned project— that it had received a subpoena from the SEC regarding the project's development.
Public utilities in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio issued $4.5 billion of debt, some it under the federal Build America Bond program, to finance their participation. Peabody initially sponsored the project and still owns a small stake along with two rural power cooperatives. The higher energy costs have prompted some local municipalities that purchase power from the utility participants to examine a way to exit their contracts.
