OMAHA, Neb.— The Nebraska Attorney General is suing Omaha Public Power District for planning to reduce the stations output.

OPPD is planning on retiring three units in its North Omaha location. This will reduce the total station output by about forty percent.  OPPD plans to switch the two remaining units to be natural gas rather than coal to reduce carbon emissions.

Hilgers says this is directly undermining the objectives of the legislature, affordability and reliability.

“If the OPPD wants to reduce emissions at that point which they have in the past, they absolutely can. And frankly as a policy maker I encourage them to do so,” Hilgers said. “But they can not do that if they are degrading affordability and the reliability of the grid. And by shutting down 40% of their capacity, that’s exactly that they’re doing. The Omaha area is under, like everywhere else in the country, has significant demands for its resources. OPPD according to their public comments anticipates that they will need, they will have another two thousand megawatts of demand over the next ten years.”

While they would be retiring three units and switching the others, OPPD has been growing in recent years.

A new facility opened in June at Turtle Creek station and a third turbine is set to be complete by 2027.

“It essentially allows them to meet in the very near term the additional demand so if they do nothing else other than just bring on what they brought online,” Hilgers said. “Turtle Creek station as [reporter] mentioned the other Standing Bear Lake is another one. If they just bring that on that will enable them to meet current demand, which would enable them to not have to increase prices theoretically. That enables them to meet the status quo demand of today. Assuming North Omaha is online, if North Omaha is not online then they can’t even with that new capacity given the demand growth.”

OPPD currently serves mostly everyone along the Nebraska side of the Missouri River from Decatur to the southeast corner of the state, and all of the Omaha metro.

Based on population, they serve approximately half of the state.