US Bureau of Land Management to auction Colorado solar sites

The US government’s land agency, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), will hold its first competitive auction of public land for solar development today. BLM’s Colorado office will auction off three parcels of land totalling 3,705 acres in two ‘solar energy zones’ in Conejos and Saguache counties in the south of the state. SEZs are areas of public land in the US designated by the government for development of PV arrays. If fully developed the two SEZs in today’s auction, De Tilla Gulch and Los Mogotes East, could support up to 400MW of new solar capacity, BLM said. “These Solar Energy Zones (SEZs) are part of our effort to make sure that we’re developing clean energy in the right places and in the right ways,” said BLM’s principal deputy director Neil Kornze. “[Today’s] competitive auction is an important milestone as we seek to accelerate the development of clean energy on our public lands that hold enormous potential for the solar power and for generating jobs and revenue for local communities.” Successful bidders in the auction will be invited to submit detailed project proposals, which will subject to environmental impact scrutiny. The US department of the Interior has created 19 SEZs in the western solar plan aimed at stimulating solar development in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The zones are in areas with access to planned or existing transmission lines and where impact on biological, cultural and historic resources are expected to be minimal.

Another 1 MW of Community-Owned Solar Comes Online in Colorado

Perched at 9,200 feet in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, two community-shared solar arrays began producing clean, local power this week for residents and businesses of the historic ski town of Breckenridge, Colo. and surrounding Summit County. Developed in tandem by Clean Energy Collective (CEC), the Breckenridge Sol Array and the Breckenridge Ullr Solar Array are the first and only community solar facilities in Summit County, Colo., and are the second and third community-owned projects to come online in Xcel Energy's young Solar*Rewards Community program. The two 500 kW facilities—which the Town of Breckenridge named for Ullr, the Norse god of snow, and Sól, the god of sun—have the capacity to generate locally-made clean power for up to 200 Summit County electricity customers. The Ullr Array is completely sold out. Residential, commercial, or non-profit customers can purchase 235-Watt panels in the Sol Array for $870 each, with a minimum of five panels up to as many as needed to completely power a home or business. Thanks to the Town of Breckenridge's enthusiastic support of the program, town residents and businesses will also receive a $0.10/Watt rebate. "Today, Breckenridge and Summit County residents have access to affordable clean power and can feel good about how they're energy is generated," said Paul Spencer, CEC's founder and president. Community solar serves utility ratepayers who want to use renewable energy but face unworkable barriers like shady roofs, they are renters, or lack the financial capability to build a full solar PV system on site. Members receive all of the same rebates and incentives of home-sited systems, and receive credit for the power produced directly on their monthly utility bills. Community-shared solar facilities are sited and maintained to produce more energy for much longer, which delivers a significantly faster payback and better overall financial return than most other renewable energy solutions. This marks the 12th community-owned solar array CEC has brought online in Colorado, representing nearly 5 MW of utility-scale projects. CEC is building a total of 11 community-owned solar gardens under the Xcel Solar*Rewards program, to serve Colorado customers in Boulder, Jefferson, Denver, Arapahoe and Summit Counties and the City of Aurora. CEC also has facilities operating or under construction in N.M., Minn. and VT. About Clean Energy Collective (CEC) Colorado-based Clean Energy Collective is a developer of community-based renewable energy facilities and a national leader in community power generation. CEC established the first community-owned solar garden in the country near El Jebel, Colorado in 2010. In just three years, CEC has partnered with nine utilities on 23 renewable energy sites, representing more than 10 MW of community-sited solar PV. CEC is currently in discussions with some 75 utilities in 22 states.

Xcel Energy Buying Utility-Scale Solar at Prices Competitive With Natural Gas

Is utility-scale solar close to crossing a pivotal price threshold? Utility Xcel Energy last month submitted a proposal to Colorado regulators that identifies 170 megawatts of solar and 450 megawatts of wind as the most cost-effective resources. It's the first time that Xcel Energy, which serves eight states in the West and Midwest, chose solar and wind in its planning process strictly for economic reasons, rather than to meet the state's renewable energy standard, according to the company. “This is the first time that we’ve seen, purely on a price basis, that the solar projects made the cut -- without considering carbon costs or the need to comply with a renewable energy standard -- strictly on an economic basis,” David Eves, CEO of an Xcel subsidiary, told the Denver Business Journal. Xcel Energy won't be building solar or wind farms. Its plan is based on bids from project developers of solar and wind farms. "A lot of those energy technologies have started to level the playing field and we are able to take advantage of that," said spokesperson Michelle Aguayo in an interview with Greentech Media. In addition to the 170 megawatts of solar, the investor-owned utility called for nearly half a gigawatt of new wind, which it would also add through power-purchase agreements with third parties. The utility would also use 317 megawatts of power from natural gas plants that already supply Xcel Energy. These plants can adjust their output to buffer variable wind and solar farms, Aguayo said. Although the cost to develop solar projects has dropped steadily in recent years, Xcel's plan to buy solar for purely economic reasons is an anomaly, said Shayle Kann, the vice president of research at GTM Research. Georgia's solar plan calls for adding solar outside of state renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), but otherwise, renewable energy mandates are driving utility-scale solar, notably in California and Arizona, where the bulk of new utility solar installations are located. In the years ahead, though, the utility solar market will need to create demand with cheaper kilowatt-hours. "This has to start becoming the norm before too long, because state RPSs won't be deciding utility solar, so there needs to be procurement on a pure economic basis," Kann said. "This should be the trend not only in Colorado, but in every other market for utility-scale solar to pick back up." The federal Investment Tax Credit will fall from its current 30 percent to 10 percent in 2017 for business-related projects. Xcel’s proposal is based on bids for projects that would be installed by 2018. Colorado has a renewable energy standard that requires investor-owned utilities to procure 30 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. Xcel is already on pace to meet those demands, Aguayo says. As for maintaining grid stability in light of a higher penetration of renewables, she says that its current resource proposal does not include the addition of new transmission lines. Other components of the plan include permanently closing a 109-megawatt unit at a coal-powered station and converting an existing coal plant to natural gas at the end of 2017. If all the measures were adopted, Xcel Energy says it would reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by one-third compared to 2005 levels. The state commission needs to respond to and amend the proposal by December 9.