Utility wants to spend $153 million on pollution controls at Sheboygan plant

From an article by Tom Content in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Pollution controls would be installed at a 23-year-old coal-fired power plant in Sheboygan at a cost of $153 million under an application filed with state regulators Friday by Alliant Energy Corp.

Wisconsin Power & Light Co., a subsidiary of Alliant, is seeking permission from the state Public Service Commission to install pollution controls that would reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide by 75%, the utility said.

The Edgewater 5 power plant along Lake Michigan in Sheboygan is a jointly owned plant, with Alliant owning 75% and the remainder owned by We Energies of Milwaukee. That means that if the project is approved, WP&L electric customers would pay $115 million and We Energies customers would pay $38 million for the project.

The project has a six-year payback period and would keep the coal plant that opened in 1985 open for another 45 years, WP&L said. If the PSC approves the work, the project would be completed by 2011.

The filing comes days after the Public Service Commission denied an Alliant request to build a new coal-fired power plant in Cassville in southwestern Wisconsin at a cost of nearly $1.3 billion.

Nitrogen oxide is a contributor to ground-level ozone, a contributor to smog that has been linked to asthma and other respiratory problems, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.