Utah wants to keep IPP’s coal burning — but who will buy the electricity?

During a special legislative session, the Utah Legislature slowed down a plan, but didn’t abounded, a plan to purchase the Delta-area power plant.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Construction of a new green-energy system at International Power Project's coal-fired power plant in Delta on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023.

The Utah Legislature pumped the brakes on a plan that could have Utah taxpayers assume ownership of a coal-fired Intermountain Power Plant in the west-central part of the state that is in the process of being shut down.

With very little debate during a special legislative session, lawmakers passed HB3004, which makes a few key changes to the process that legislators set up in this year’s SB161 — which was passed on the second to last day of regular session.

That law required the Intermountain Power Agency, which operates a power plant near Delta, to submit a new application for an air quality permit by July 1 that would allow for operating the coal plant while still keeping IPA’s next generation power plant, IPP Renewed.

SB161 also had language allowing the state to take over IPA and the power plant if it doesn’t comply with the request.

IPA’s leadership and officials from more than 15 local governments objected to that approach and tried to get Gov. Spencer Cox to veto the bill, warning it would put existing agreements with the Environmental Protection Agency in jeopardy and could prompt federal regulators to order the plant to be shut down before next summer. Cox brushed off those concerns and signed the bill.

Like the current IPP, IPP Renewed will send nearly all of its po