Holcomb ? One of the three coal-fired power plants scheduled to be built in Finney County has been put on hold.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc. announced this week that it would delay construction of the second of two units it planned to build south of Holcomb. Instead, the Westminster, Colo.-based company plans to pursue other natural gas and renewable energy plants to serve customers’ immediate needs.

Hays-based Sunflower Electric Power Corp. is building the two 700-watt units and a third unit of its own.

All three units are to be built near Sunflower’s 360-megawatt facility south of Holcomb. Sunflower currently serves about 118,000 customers with the one coal-fired plant.

“Tri-State is closely monitoring its power supply needs, pursuing natural gas and renewables, and has concluded that a delay of their second unit is in their member cooperatives’ best interests,” said Earl Watkins, Sunflower’s president and chief executive officer.

Tri-State’s other planned 700-megawatt power plant remains on schedule to be commercially available by 2013.

The third 700-megawatt power plant planned for the site – to be built by Sunflower, Golden Spread Electric Cooperative and Midwest Energy – is expected to be commercially available in 2012.

Under an agreement with Sunflower, Tri-State will take 100 megawatts of the generating capacity from that plant to serve its member cooperatives.