The article excerpt says, in essence, that the electric power plant is fired by natural gas. Many have said that natural gas will continue to be low cost, even after natural gas investor interests got with the government to raise the costs of coal-fired plants and shut down some of them. We knew that costs would go up, though. Investment firms have even been calling investors to natural gas recently.
they are shutting down the Nuke plant and some of the coal plants in the area and the pipeline system for gas will be very congested. 24 cents per KW/Hour is crazy, it might work out better to run your own generator at those prices.
The system in place allows first dibs on “fixed rate” gas contracts to distributors serving home heating customers. Any residual capacity is bid in the “spot” market, which the electrical generating facilities are relegated to.
Coal and nuclear plants were in the mix, but the gas fired plants have moved from 12% to 45% of the mix in a decade, without supplementing the gas delivery system sized only for residential heating demand.
Nimby and the windmill crowd are sinking prospects for improvement, at least until enough residents actually freeze.