5.3. ERMUSR 11-13-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Page 1 of 1 Ferguson, Peggy From: Tessa Anderson [tessaa@cmmpa.org) Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 9:41 AM To: Ferguson, Peggy Subject: FW: Big Stone 2 Power Plant Participation From: Steve Thompson Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 1:36 PM To: 'jtakle@aol.com' Subject: Big Stone 2 Power Palnt Participation Jerry My name is Steve Thompson from Central Minnesota Municipal Power Agency . We were scheduled to meet with you and Bryan Adam yesterday October 23 to discuss an opportunity for Elk River to participate in the Big Stone 2 base load coal power plant with us. We understand that GRE has given their 10 year notice to terminate your power supply contract. We believe Big Stone 2 would be an good opportunity to replace part of your capacity and energy needs supplied by GRE after your contract with them ends. We are still interested in meeting with you to discuss the opportunity. A base load power plant project takes 6 plus years from early development, through permitting, through construction to in-service, so even though your GRE contract does not expire until 2018, now is the time to start looking at and evaluating your options. And there are currently limited base load power supply opportunities available at his time or in the forseeable future. In fact there was legislation passed last year in Minnesota that put a moratorium on new coal plants in Minnesota. CMMPA actively lobbied against this legislation and was successful at attaining an exemption on Big Stone 2. The Big Stone 2 group has been actively pursuing its permits for the last 2-3 years and we are hopefully approaching the final stages of attaining all the necessary permits. The plant is currently slated to be a 500 to 580 Mw plant and CMMPA has first rights to increase its level of participation in the project and therefore could accommodate Elk River's needs. We expect to have our major permits by tan or Feb 2009, at which time we would need to know if Elk River was interested in participating so we could appropriately size the plant, so we could start plant design. Would you still be interested in meeting soon to discuss. I understand that you currently have RW beck performing some studies to start evaluating your options. We would highly recommend that you invite them to attend the meeting. Because our need to know if Elk river is interested in participating is in the not too distant future, time is somewhat of the essence, so the sooner we could meet the more time it would afford Elk River to consider participation. Please contact me at you earliest convenience if you are interested in exploring this opportunity more. Steve Thompson, PE Director of Operations Central Minnesota Municipal Power Agency 507-526-2193 11/4/2008