Lincoln Electric System proposes $180 million turbines, seeks 4% mid‑year rate increase to meet SPP reliability rules

Jason Fortic, vice president of the power supply division at Lincoln Electric System, told the Lincoln City Council at a pre‑council session that LES plans to install two aeroderivative combustion turbines at the Terry Bundy generating station and will ask the council for a 2025 budget amendment and a 4% residential rate increase starting July 1 to help finance the work.

The change is driven by new resource‑adequacy requirements from the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), Fortic said. New accreditation rules, including effective load carrying capability (ELCC), performance‑based accreditation for dispatchable units and higher planning reserve margins, reduce how much of LES’s existing generation counts toward required accredited capacity, particularly in winter. “When you look at all these regulations… it's taking our generating fleet and reducing the amount of it that we get to count for accredited capacity,” Fortic said.

LES presented board materials showing a projected shortfall as early as 2031 if new capacity is not added. The utility’s analysis compared options including combustion turbines, wind, solar and battery storage and concluded that adding combustion turbines at the Terry Bundy site is…