INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Four consumer and environmental groups agreed Friday to stop fighting a Duke Energy coal-gasification plant and join the utility's settlement with other parties on costs that will not be passed along to ratepayers.
The Citizens Action Coalition, the Sierra Club, Save the Valley and Valley Watch joined the state's largest electric utility in announcing the agreement in which Duke agreed to absorb $87.5 million of the operating costs of the Edwardsport plant since it began operations in June 2013.
If the settlement is accepted by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, where the agreement was filed Friday, it will effectively end litigation through the end of 2017 related to the plant about 70 miles north of Evansville, CAC Executive Director Kerwin Olson said. The CAC and the three environmental groups have fought Duke over the plant since the IURC approved its construction in late 2007.
"It's the right thing to do," Olson said. "This helps us get some additional protections for ratepayers and gives us time to breathe and move onto other issues."
Duke also agreed to stop burning coal within seven years at its New Albany power plant, provide $500,000 in energy assistance for needy customers, and spend $500,000 for solar projects at churches, schools and other community sites.
"One of the key parts of the new agreement is help for our customers most in need," said Duke Energy Indiana President Melody Birmingham-Byrd.
An initial settlement filed last September with the IURC included the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, a group of Duke industrial customers and Nucor Steel-Indiana.
Under a 2012 agreement with ratepayers, Duke absorbed about $900 million in construction cost overruns on the $3.5 billion, 618-megawatt plant.
The two agreements together will raise rates for the average residential customer by 2.1 percent, but less than the utility wanted. The new agreement will save an additional 18 cents per month for the average residential customers, Duke Energy said.
Tim Stewart, a lawyer representing the utility interests of large consumers of electricity, said the agreement could save industrial customers between $50,000 and $1 million a year.
The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor said the new terms make "a strong agreement even stronger."
Duke has about 790,000 customers in Indiana.