Owners of the Navajo Generating Station coal-fired plant are close to finalizing a deal to keep it running through the end of 2019.
After months of negotiations, the Navajo Nation and four of the utilities with a stake in the plant have officially signed onto the new lease agreement. That would allow the plant to operate until the end of 2019. The Salt River Project (SRP) and other utilities had already decided not to keep the plant open after then, but without an agreement it would have closed by the end of the year.
“It preserves more than two years of continued employment at the plant as well as the revenues for the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe,” Jeff Lane with SRP said.
That revenue includes more than $100 million in lease payments.
After 2019, Lane said what happens to the plant will be up to the Navajo Nation. The federal government and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power must still sign onto the lease, which is expected to happen by December.
