OPPD To Spend $143 Million on Power Plant Repairs - FOX 42: Omaha News, Sports and Weather; kptm.com |

OPPD To Spend $143 Million on Power Plant Repairs

OMAHA (KPTM)- The price of everything is going up, but there is some good news about your power bill.

The Omaha Public Power District, OPPD,  has a 10 year plan to pay for restarting the Fort Calhoun Power Plant.

Flooding and other problems forced the plant to close last year.  Now, OPPD is looking at a 143 million dollar price tag to fix it. "We feel that Fort Calhoun station is an important part our generating fleet," said OPPD spokesman, Jeff Hanson.

Hanson said OPPD plans to fix the plant to decrease dependency on just two of three fuel sources. "Should one of those other fuels go up greatly, we still have Uranium, which is a fairly stable cost of fuel."

The three main sources of fuel are coal, natural gas, and uranium. Hanson said,  the demand for coal and natural gas is increasing, which will cause costs to rise. "So, fuel diversity source for us so we're not totally reliant on one or two other types of fuel."

Hanson said OPPD plans to pay the bill over ten years, and said it plans to do everything to make sure utility bills don't increase. "We cut 24 million dollars out of this years budget, a lot by postponing some of the projects that we had going," said Hanson.

Hanson said OPPD hopes to have the plant ready for inspection by December 1^st.  After that, it'll be up to the NRC to determine if the plant is ready to start running again.