Of course the cost of a power plant is going to be passed on to the consumer (rate payer). Power plants are the tools the power company uses to produce their product. Is there any company that doesn’t pass the cost of their “tools” on to their consumers through the price of their product? Assume a power company could get the financing to build enough renewable energy infrastructure to replace the production of a plant this size, don’t you think the cost of that infrastructure would still be passed on to the consumer? At the present time you would be looking at least ten times the infrastructure cost for renewables, just think how much the rates would increase then. Someone has to pay for the cost of producing electricity, it’s not a charity.