CPS Energy issued the following announcement on July 11.
CPS Energy President & CEO, Paula Gold-Williams announced another step in the company's Flexible Path, called the Power BundleFlex. As the foundation, the Flexible Path was previously introduced by Gold-Williams in early 2018 to the CPS Energy Board of Trustees and at that point the executive team launched an extensive education and public comment program. The program included comments and dialogue with customers, businesses, civic leaders, educators and administrators, associations and chambers, environmentalists, credit ratings agencies, and other interested stakeholders. Importantly, the initially proposed Power BundleFlex will be accompanied by a new round of exploratory public engagement.
Broadly, the Flexible Path is a fresh, strategic approach that the CPS Energy executive team is using to thoughtfully discover, explore and implement new power generation solutions over the next 20 years and beyond. It is a straightforward framework that is helping CPS Energy conceptualize how to skillfully manage its existing assets, while incrementally and purposefully transitioning to newer power generation technologies. Along the way, the executive team continues to prudently balance security, safety, reliability, resilience, the environment, and affordability.
The Power BundleFlex is a "blended energy approach" through which CPS Energy will consider adding more incremental capacity. The following represents the general framework / components of the Power BundleFlex:
| ENERGY TYPE | CONTEXT | POTENTIAL CAPACITY |
| Solar: | CPS Energy is proposing solar power be added and structured as a combination of Purchase Power Agreements (PPAs) that function as leases, as well as potentially adding systems, called farms, that will be fully owned and operated by CPS Energy. The executive team will also explore designating a portion of this capacity to be smaller solar installations on its distribution system. | 300 – 900 Megawatts(MW) |
| Storage: | CPS Energy is proposing to directly own more energy storage systems, which will be great additions to its new battery project with Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). | 10 – 50 MW |
| Gas: | To improve reliability and consistency of solar while offsetting the probable higher cost of energy storage, CPS Energy is proposing to buy power from an efficient gas unit that functions in Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) today. The executive team believes that there are lower-emitting plants that can be economically contracted for a period of five-to-ten years. | 300 – 500 MW |
"The Power BundleFlex is a diversified solution set that recognizes today's renewables alone cannot support all of the community's customers consistently and reliably, 24/7/365. Prudently, it is a generation package that will ensure the community can move forward, while maximizing the existing community-owned generation assets, which are powered by gas, coal, solar, wind and nuclear sources," said Paula Gold-Williams, President & CEO of CPS Energy. "Both the Flexible Path and the Power BundleFlex will help our community move closer to a practical and cleaner energy footprint."
Based on our previous outreach successes, CPS Energy will again seek opportunities to speak to a broad array of stakeholders. Helpful information will be posted online, including today's addition of a new survey tool located at cpsenergy.com/flexiblepathsurvey. While it is very short, it will provide good preliminary feedback. CPS Energy will also make this quick survey, and other key information, available at our People First! Community Fairs and at its Customer Service Centers. Additionally, the company will provide the responses to the survey on a periodic basis.
Over the last 159 years, CPS Energy has been, and will continue to be, a utility industry leader that has a solid list of accomplishments that have brought increased value to its customers and community. Below is a summarized list of a few of those accomplishments and milestones.
| DESCRIPTION | TIMEFRAME |
| • Save for Tomorrow Energy Plan (STEP) a significant 771 MW energy efficiency & conservation program was launched | 2008 |
| • An astounding 400 MW Global Solar RFP was released to the market and ultimately implemented | 2011 |
| • The Rio Nogales Gas Plant located in Seguin, TX, was purchased and designated to replace the J.T. Deely Coal units in 2018 (See the December 31, 2018 item below) | 2012 |
| • Flexible Path was announced | March 2018 |
| • Flexible Path community engagement & public comment began | March 2018 – ongoing |
| • Flexible Path Board Public Input Session | June 13, 2018 |
| • Solar and Battery Storage at SwRI groundbreaking | October 10, 2018 |
| • Flexible Path Board Public Input Session | November 27, 2018 |
| • J.T. Deely Coal Units closed (Replaced proactively with the Rio Nogales Gas Plant, purchased in 2012) | December 31, 2018 |
| • Flexible Path / Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) Board Public Input Session | February 18, 2019 |
| • Battery Storage at SwRI was activated | March 11, 2019 |
| • #1 in Texas for Solar - Ranking Announcement by Environment Texas | April 9, 2019 |
| • "Big Sun" Community Solar launched, which includes a solar offering for low to moderate income customers | May 7, 2019 |
| • Electrify America Electric Vehicle (EV) charging station opened | May 13, 2019 |
| • Power BundleFlex community engagement launch | July 10, 2019 |
About CPS Energy
Established in 1860, CPS Energy is the nation's largest public power, natural gas and electric company, providing safe, reliable, and competitively-priced service to 840,750 electric and 352,585 natural gas customers in San Antonio and portions of seven adjoining counties. Our customers' combined energy bills rank among the lowest of the nation's 20 largest cities – while generating $7 billion in revenue for the City of San Antonio for more than seven decades. As a trusted and strong community partner, we continuously focus on job creation, economic development and educational investment. True to our People First philosophy, we are powered by our skilled workforce, whose commitment to the community is demonstrated through our employees' volunteerism in giving back to our city and programs aimed at bringing value to our customers. CPS Energy is among the top public power wind energy buyers in the nation and number one in Texas for solar generation.
Original source can be found here.
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