San Antonio’s CPS Energy announced Wednesday it has closed on a $785 million acquisition of natural gas plants from Houston-based Talen Energy Corporation.
The local utility first announced the deal at the end of March.
Under the terms of agreement, CPS Energy will add 1,710 megawatts of power located in the South Zone of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to its generation portfolio.
This includes energy from the Barney Davis and Nueces Bay plants in Corpus Christi and a gas-fired generation facility in Laredo.
“This step marks CPS Energy’s growing role as a regional energy utility, providing additional resilience and reliability for our customers,” Rudy Garza, president and CEO of CPS Energy, said in a statement. “This acquisition adds critical capacity to our generation portfolio to continue to reliably serve one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. Our customers will benefit from these investments for decades to come.”
Talen owns and operates about 10.7 gigawatts of power infrastructure in the U.S.
“We are pleased that these assets will support CPS Energy’s efforts to provide reliable and cost-effective power generation through its diverse portfolio to its growing community,” said Mac McFarland, Talen president and CEO.
The acquisitions come in support of CPS Energy’s board-approved 2027 generation plan.
The plan aims to retire older coal and gas units and add a blend of more efficient gas generation along with wind, solar, and energy storage.
To date, CPS Energy has added 730 megawatts of solar energy and 50 megawatts of energy storage as part of the plan.
It also launched a Request for Proposal (RFP) last year for 500 megawatts of energy storage.
CPS Energy officials said the addition of the facilities provides the utility with readily available power, which gives more flexibility to add other renewable energy and storage sources.
They will also help keep environmental emissions on track to help meet the city's reduction commitment by 2030 as part of the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.
The Corpus Christi and Laredo plants are expected to remain operational for the next 25 years.
A combined 66 operations employees at the three sites have retained employment with CPS Energy.
