Recent reports that the Ames Power Plant may close are inaccurate, city officials said Thursday.

Speculation has risen from a study completed by the Chicago consulting firm, Sargent and Lundy LLC, suggesting that one of the city’s most cost-efficient solutions to power supply would be to close the coal-fired power plant and buy power from elsewhere.

City officials say the report was meant only as background to help the city make its own plan about how to handle power in the future. Although closing the power plant is one option that will have to be considered, several equally possible options will be looked into.

Merlin Hove, the electric services director for Ames, said he was surprised by the reaction the report has gotten.

“They made it sound like our plant would go out of business,” he said.

Hove said the task that’s really in front of the city is to find a way to diversify the city’s power sources.

“One of the things that the report pointed out is that it’s an advantage for cities not to have all their resources in one basket,” he said.

“We are moving towards that gradually already, so we would continue moving that way.”

The plant uses two coal-fired generators to produce most of the electrical needs for Ames. Additionally, the plant works with the Resource Recovery Plant to turn waste into fuel. The city also buys a small amount of its electricity to meet increasing demands.

City Manager Steve Schainker said the city will be looking at different options and focusing on ways to diversify for the future.

“In the electric industry, they call this risk management,” Schainker said. “In other words, wherever you get your electricity from, you spread it out in different places just in case you have a tornado that takes one out.”

He said the city will work on several studies during the next two years in order to determine what options the city has and what each will cost. The city hopes to have a plan in two years.

“We’ve got to look at the costs,” Schainker said. “Then we may find it could be a little more costly to put it in two different places, but for diversification or risk we might want to do that.”

The city views the plant’s ability to burn its trash a top priority, Schainker said.

Hove said it is a possibility for the plant to continue to be used for the purpose of turning trash into fuel, if nothing else. The city generates 10 to 12 percent of its fuel as waste energy.

“That is probably one of the biggest community concerns,” Hove said.

He said the city looked into the study in order to prepare for the future.

“Power plants don’t last forever,” he said. “Power plants are very often referred to as having a life of 35 to 40 years, and our oldest unit in the plant has met that test and is ending its useful life.”

Hove said other plants have found it economical to extend the life of the old unit because new units are very expensive. The other unit, which was installed in 1981, will still be useful for many years.

The plant may also be affected by proposed federal emissions standards.

“They see on the horizon some rules that are really very expensive,” Hove said. “Old plants had a rule that they met when they were built, and then along the way they come up with rules that you need to update.”

Ames is able to offer very competitive rates, Hove said, because the city owns the plant.

“We don’t rent it, we don’t buy it on the market,” Hove said. “The fact that we own it and take care of it is something we’re very proud of.”