Blackstone power plant changes owners
BLACKSTONE – The power plant on Elm Street has changed hands again.
Dynegy, Inc., which spent $3.3 billion last year to acquire global energy and services provider ENGIE’s United States portfolio – including International Power America (IPA) of Blackstone – sold the portfolio in November to Vistra Energy Corp in an all-stock deal worth $1.74 billion, combining the two Texas-based power producers.
Vistra, the largest retailer and generator of electricity in Texas, is based in Irving, while Dynegy is headquartered in Houston.
Dynegy operates 27,000 megawatts of power generating facilities throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Texas, including the Blackstone plant, the NEA Bellingham cogeneration and ANP Bellingham power plants in Bellingham and the Milford Power LP in Milford.
“Dynegy purchased the power plant last year and that sale was finalized in October. Then they sold it in November to Vistra and that sale will be finalized in May, so it’s been sold and resold,” said Blackstone Town Administrator Daniel Keyes.
Blackstone town officials were preparing to negotiate a new 10year extension of a payment-in-lieuof-taxes (PILOT) agreement between the town and the power plant when it was under the ownership of Dynegy, but those talks are now on hold until the sale between Dynegy and Vistra is finalized in May and the town can approach the new owners.
The 20-year agreement, which was brokered back in the 1990s when the Elm Street power plant was built, is set to expire in three years and the selectmen are hoping to extend the agreement by 10 years by the time it expires in 2020.
At a selectmen’s meeting Tuesday, member Robert J. Dubois said the board should make it a priority to negotiate a tax agreement with the plant’s new owners.
“It’s extremely important that we get this done this year,” he said.
Any agreement extension would need to be ratified by voters at a town meeting.
Instead of the plant paying taxes directly into the general fund, the PILOT agreement ratified by town meeting voters back in the 1990s allows the money - about $2.1 million annually through fiscal year 2020 - to be placed in a capitol investment fund that was approved by special legislation.
Over the years, that fund has been used to fund projects like water and sewer infrastructure, road improvements, even a new library.
Currently, the town has a formal long-range plan that balances most of its capital project needs and existing debt service annual payments with projected PILOT funds through 2020.
The Blackstone facility - initially owned and operated by American National Power - is a 570-megawatt power plant utilizing two gas turbines that employ sequential combustion technology to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, compared to traditional power plants.
The plant consists of two single-shaft designed, combined cycle units, each of which consists of a gas turbine, heat recovery steam generator and steam turbines that are combined together in a system that produces electric power at a much higher efficiency than is possible with each system operating independently.