SALEM — Environmental activists are pointing to a filing the owner of Salem Harbor Station made with the federal government two weeks ago as a sign of plans to close the aging power plant in a few years.
"They are crunching the numbers as if they are going away permanently," said Seth Kaplan, vice president for climate advocacy at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston.
Jane Bright of HealthLink, a grass-roots North Shore advocacy group, agreed.
"I think the big picture on this whole thing is that all the indications are they are getting ready to close the plant," she said.
Dominion, the plant owner, said nothing could be further from the truth.
The information submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission "does not mean in any way that the power station is going to close in the near future," said Jim Norvelle, a spokesman for the Virginia-based energy giant.
The filing the company made is about economics, and not about the physical plant and its future, Norvelle said.
This latest controversy was triggered by Dominion's announcement that it did not plan to take part in an energy auction in October, aimed at ensuring there will be sufficient energy for the region three years from now.
In making a case for "de-listing" its electrical generating units — effectively withdrawing them from the auction — Dominion made several references to the age of its oil boilers and generators and their remaining "useful economic life."
Skipping the auction makes good business sense, the company said, but doesn't mean they won't be producing energy in 2012. It also doesn't preclude the company from taking part in future auctions, Norvelle said.
"The de-list bid that we filed ... provides for us the greatest number of options moving forward," he said.
But opponents say this proposal by Dominion is one more sign of trouble at Salem Harbor Station. The plant had a fatal boiler accident less than two years ago, which some blamed on its aging equipment. In addition, Dominion has invested significantly less money on improvements in Salem, a coal and oil plant, than at its much larger coal plant at Brayton Point on the South Shore.
Kaplan, the Conservation Law official, said he is puzzled by Dominion's filing and strategy. The capacity market can be a separate and sizable source of income for power plants, he said.
"They have said, 'We are walking away from a right to get money, to get capacity payments three years from now,'" he said. "Why would somebody do that if they thought the plant was going to be up and running?"
The capacity market is complex, Norvelle said, and the company wants to assure it does not put itself in a bad financial position by agreeing to take part. Even if it skips the auction, it can still sell electricity three years from now in the daily "spot" market, he said.
"We decided not to lock into an uneconomic and, we would argue, unrealistic auction price being set today for three years into the future," Norvelle said.
Bright, of HealthLink, accused Dominion of trying to line its pockets by this strategy. "They can't resist trying to screw the public because they are trying to game the system to increase the rates that they charge," she said.
On the contrary, the company said it is trying to be fiscally responsible while complying with all environmental regulations and providing reliable, low-cost energy for the region.
"We believe we're going to be able to operate three years from now through our strategy, and part of that means we decided not to participate in the auction," Norvelle said.
Last year, a Dominion executive said the company intends to operate Salem Harbor Station "for years to come."
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