Sep. 16--TILTON -- A natural gas-fired power plant in Tilton will be sold at the end of the year as part of a package designed to give its owner, Houston-based Dynegy, additional operating cash.

Dynegy officials Monday confirmed negotiations with New York-based LS Power Group to sell the Tilton Energy Center by year's end, along with four other "peaking" and three combined-cycle generation plants in the U.S.

According to Christi Dunn, a Dynegy spokeswoman, the deal also includes the sell-off of the Rocky Road facility in East Dundee.

"We are selling some of our 'peaking' assets, but we don't have plans to sell any other plants (in Illinois)," she said, which includes a second local plant here, the coal-burning Vermilion Power Station near Oakwood.

"(The Tilton plant) will be part of a larger transaction of a number of power plants being sold," said David Byford, another Dynegy spokesman, adding the move also will include other company cost-cutting moves.

Both said it is unknown whether the sale will affect any of the "handful" of jobs at the Tilton facility and officials from LS Power did not answer a request for an interview. The Vermilion plant employs 65.

Byford said the Tilton plant, with a generating capacity of 188 megawatts, is considered a "peaking" plant because it is only switched on during times of peak demand to supplement the region's power grid. It was built in 1999 and purchased from Illinois Power two years later.

"It has a very small staff because it's a peaking plant that runs very seldom," he explained.

The Vermilion plant, in contrast, is a non-peaking plant with a 176 megawatts generating capacity and runs full time.

Dynegy owns around 30 power plants throughout the country, about half of which are in Illinois. Likewise, Dynegy's 500 Illinois employees are the highest number it has in any state.

Tilton Mayor David Phillips said the local plant had been a "good neighbor" and that he was unaware of any difficulties or violations since its construction.

"We've never had any problems at all with them," he said. "They're hooked into our sewer system and they've helped us when we've had problems."

Dynegy's Dunn said the Tilton plant runs on cleaner-burning natural gas and is not included in an ongoing $1 billion company-wide program initiated with an Environmental Protection Agency consent decree to convert its coal-fired plants.

The Oakwood plant, built more than 50 years ago, was the first of Dynegy's portfolio to be required to convert to cleaner-burning, powder river basin coal and have filtering systems installed.