Colorado's Big Coal Cosuming Utilities Move to Renewable Power

Most of the electricity developed in Colorado still comes from burning coal, but even the state's two largest coal burners are adding far more renewable energy. The Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and Platte River Power Authority every single lately announced plans for new renewable energy sources. "We've observed the rates dropping, and we've been in a position to add these renewable power projects," stated Lee Boughey, a spokesman for Westminster-primarily based Tri-State. Tri-State announced this month that it would add a 150-megawatt wind farm in Kit Carson County. Platte River Energy, based in Fort Collins, is set to add a 22-megawatt solar installation near Wellington. "Their current investments in wind and solar represent true progress and are essential methods toward diversifying their power supplies," said John Nielsen, power plan director at the environmental group Western Resource Advocates. Colorado has a Renewable Power Regular that calls for investor-owned utilities to get 30 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Municipal utilities have a ten % target, and rural electric cooperatives, below a bill in the legislature, would have a 15 percent target. Advertisement Platte River Power and Tri-State are wholesale electricity generators and do not fall directly beneath the standards for renewable power. Tri-State supplies electricity to 44 rural electric cooperatives in four states, such as 18 in Colorado. Platte River Energy serves municipal systems in Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland. About three-quarters of the electrical energy the two corporations generated in 2014 came from coal, according to company figures. And so, though there have been advances in adding natural gas and renewable energy generation, coal remains king in Colorado. In December 2014, 58 % of Colorado's electricity generation came from coal-fired plants, and renewable sources created up 15 percent. By comparison, Minneapolis-primarily based Xcel Power, Colorado's largest electrical energy supplier, reduce its coal-fired generation to 53 % in 2014 from 65 % in 2005. Xcel, an investor-owned utility, projects coal will be 46 percent of generation in 2020 and renewable sources 28 percent. About 26 percent will be natural gas. Still, Tri-State and Platte River Energy slowly are adding renewable sources. Tri-State has added 800 megawatts of renewable resources due to the fact 2008, Boughey said, and 24 % of its electrical energy came from wind and hydropower in 2014. In 2013, for example, Tri-State contracted with the city of Boulder to invest in electrical energy from the Boulder Canyon Hydroelectric facility. The new Kit Carson wind farm is being built by Juno Beach, Fla.-primarily based NextEra Power at a price of $240 million and will sell energy to Tri-State on a 25-year contract. Though the prices for renewable energy are coming down, Tri-State's Boughey said the challenge is adding transmission to tie in these sources. Tri-State is building a 72-mile line in between Burlington and Wray at a projected expense of $40 million. "Developing transmission lines is time-consuming and expensive," Boughey said. Tri-State's member cooperatives also added 54 megawatts of distributed renewable-power resources, and an extra 15 megawatts are under development. Distributed resources are smaller sized generation projects that include things like wind, solar, hydropower and recycled-heat projects, Boughey said. In October, Tri-State put out a contact for proposals for further renewable-power projects and these are now below overview, Boughey mentioned. Platte River Power generates significantly less than 5 % of its energy from wind and, at the moment, none from solar. About 20 % of the authority's energy comes from hydroelectric plants. The authority board, even so, has set a goal for reducing carbon emissions from energy generation by 20 % by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Coal-fired power plants are the largest single supply of carbon dioxide emissions &mdash about 30 % of the nation's 2014 total, according to the federal Energy Facts Administration. Carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas linked to climate alter in several scientific studies. And so, the Platte River Power Authority board's request is aimed straight at the company's three massive coal-fired plants. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has drafted rules that would require Colorado to reduce back energy plant carbon emissions by 35 percent by 2030. Platte River Energy is effectively on the way to raising its renewable energy to 32 percent by 2016, stated John Bleem, the authority's organizing and customer service director. That figure involves hydropower and renewable power credits bought from renewable-energy installations in other states, Bleem said. As for trying to get to the purpose of an 80 percent reduce in carbon by 2050, Bleem stated "we've been crunching the numbers." That purpose has to be met in the context of sustaining reliability of the program and keeping rates amongst the lowest of wholesale suppliers, Bleem mentioned. Platte River Energy sells kilowatt-hours to its municipal systems for about 5.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, Bleem said. That is about half the rate Xcel charges residential buyers. The steps taken by Platte River Power and Tri-State enable them to greater integrate renewable energy on their systems, said Western Resource Advocates' Nielsen. "With this expertise in hand, resistance to these technologies decreases and utilities develop into significantly additional open to acquiring further renewable energy," Nielsen stated. "Our hope is that this will be the case with each Platte River and Tri-State."