Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers announced Thursday that he has filed a lawsuit against the Omaha Public Power District to ensure that the utility does not shut down critical electric generating units at its North Omaha power station.
The plant houses five generating units, two that burn coal and three that run primarily on natural gas. The utility plans to retire the three natural gas units and convert the remaining two coal-burning units to natural gas.
Hilgers said he was filing the suit because the planned refueling and retirement is being pursued for reasons that directly conflict with the core mission of public power established by the Nebraska Legislature: to prioritize affordability of the electricity they produce and the reliability of the electric grid they oversee.
Instead, at a time of rapidly increasing demand for electricity, he said, OPPD’s proposed plan will threaten grid reliability and increase electric costs.
Retiring the three natural gas units, he said, will reduce generating capacity at the plant by 40% and take 200 megawatts of generation offline. Meanwhile, he said, completing the conversion would come at a projected cost of more than $400 million, according to OPPD documents.
The reasons they are planning to retire some units and refuel the two others, he said, are because of environmental justice concerns and the suggestion by some that the plant impairs air quality in North Omaha.
However, Hilgers said, the plant meets all federal emissions standards and has been listed as a low emitter. Air quality in the area, as measured by Douglas County, was great on Thursday morning.
“There’s almost no doubt that this action will increase costs and decrease reliability in Omaha,” Hilgers said.
In the lawsuit, filed in Douglas County District Court, Hilgers is seeking an injunction to stop OPPD’s plan to refuel and retire units at the station.
When asked for comment, an OPPD spokeswoman said the utility does not comment on pending litigation.
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At recent meetings of the utility’s elected board, North Omaha residents and environmentalists have urged the utility and its board to keep the utility’s promise to end coal-fired generation at the plant.
Burning coal at the North Omaha Station was supposed to have been completely phased out in 2023. But in 2022, the utility’s board voted to put off the conversion until at least 2026, in large part because it faced a regional backlog in getting replacement power connected into the grid.
The plant, located along the Missouri River south of the Interstate 680 bridge, is adjacent to densely populated neighborhoods.
Coal pollution has been linked to respiratory and cardiac health problems, as well as cancer. Citing data from the Douglas County Health Department, North Omaha residents have long been concerned about the area’s higher-than-average rate of asthma deaths. Among their questions is whether the power plant could be an underlying reason.
OPPD officials said in August that the utility continues to follow the 2022 plan the board approved to retire the North Omaha coal units while transitioning remaining units to natural gas. According to the utility’s website, that is expected to take place by the end of 2026.
“Timing of that transition was dependent on achieving regulatory milestones, and OPPD estimated that facility changes would be executed in 2026,” officials said in the statement. “Should that plan change, we would align accordingly.”
The lawsuit comes as OPPD continues to bring new generating units online and plan for more. The utility brought the new two-unit, 450-megawatt Turtle Creek Station in Papillion online in June and is expected to open Standing Bear Lake Station, a 150-megawatt gas-fired plant in northwest Omaha in the coming weeks. Together, the two plants will bring up to 600 megawatts of new generation capacity online this year.
The additional generation is part of a historic $2 billion expansion the utility’s board approved in 2023 that will nearly double the utility’s generating capacity over the next decade and help it address unprecedented growth in electric demand.
Customers saw an average rate increase this year of 6.3%, partly due to the cost of repairing damage caused by multiple storms. But utility officials said when that increase was approved in December 2024 they believe OPPD’s rates will continue to be competitive.
The utility’s average rates were 15.8% below the regional average and 27.4% below the national average, according to 2023 Energy Information Agency data, the most recent available. Residential rates were 24.8% below the national number.
Preliminary data for 2024 indicates the utility will come in 32.5% below the national average, even when including this year’s 2.5% rate increase.
julie.anderson@owh.com, 402-444-1066, twitter.com/julieanderson41
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