Xcel Energy unveils ambitious Colorado solar, wind power plan

To help meet Colorado’s renewable portfolio standard, Xcel Energy plans to add 700 megawatts of wind power and 350MW of utility-scale solar power by 2015, Recharge learns. As part of its plan filed with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, a regulatory body, Xcel Energy hopes to obtain an additional 257MW of solar power through a program in which it buys renewable energy credits from customers who install solar power systems. Taken together, the acquisition plan for renewable energy is among the most ambitious for any electric utility in the US. Colorado’s RPS requires large investor-owned utilities to produce 20% of their energy from renewable resources by 2020, four percent of which must come from “solar-electric technologies.”