Colorado Joins the Southwest Power Pool. Now What?
Last night, several Colorado-based utilities officially joined the Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organization serving members in all or part of 17 states. Colorado Springs Utilities, Platte River Power Authority, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, and others have become part of the RTO, which is the first “to bridge the eastern and western electric grids.” […]
Xcel Says It Can’t Shut Down its Coal Plants by 2030. Believe Them.
Xcel Energy’s March 2 filing with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) reads like a company trying to get ahead of a crisis. On paper, it might be just a simple status update about Comanche Unit 3, a coal-fired plant near Pueblo, which is undergoing repairs. Instead, Xcel sounds the alarm about grid reliability. According […]
Colorado Sun’s ‘Nonpartisan’ Case Against Natural Gas is Misleading
The Colorado Sun recently published an opinion article that diagnoses a real problem — rising energy costs — but misdiagnoses the cause. Policies forcing wind, solar, and batteries onto the grid and mandating electrification are raising costs for Colorado consumers, not natural gas. Set aside that the authors, Silvio Marcacci and Dan Esposito, work for […]
PUC Establishes New ‘Clean Heat’ Targets Designed to Crack Down on Natural Gas
The regulatory noose around Colorado’s natural gas utilities just got a whole lot tighter, and captive ratepayers stand to bear the brunt of the economic pain. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on Monday issued a formal decision updating the state’s emissions targets under its first-in-the-nation “clean heat plan” law. The decision established by rule […]
The Big Short(fall): Colorado’s Upcoming Power Plant Closures and Planned Replacements
By Ethan Cornell* Introduction The data summarizing planned generation closures in Colorado signals a rapid and profound infrastructural transformation. The schedule details the planned retirement of 10 major coal-fired units between 2025 and 2031, collectively representing a loss of nearly 4,200 megawatts (MW) of nameplate capacity. The primary policy question this raises is whether the […]
Independence Institute Tells the Public Utilities Commission to Reconsider Forced Electrification Rulemaking
In the 2021 legislative session, the Colorado General Assembly passed SB21-264, a first-in-the-nation law requiring the state’s gas distribution utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 4% by 2025 and by 22% by 2030, from a 2015 baseline, by filing “Clean Heat Plans” with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Since then, Colorado gas utilities like […]
Colorado Utilities Signal Pain Ahead for Energy Transition
Sample excerpt here…
Colorado Energy Office’s Economic Hindenburg: The Ballooning Costs of the Hydrogen Transition
In October 2023, the Biden Administration awarded $7 billion of taxpayer dollars to kickstart the development of regional hydrogen hubs. These hydrogen hubs will independently explore new ways to lower the cost of producing so-called clean hydrogen and find new and innovative uses for hydrogen fuel. While Colorado’s proposal for a Western Interstate Hydrogen Hub […]
Colorado PUC Trims Xcel’s Unprecedented Renewables Plan
Ratepayer interests received a small win from Colorado regulators overseeing Xcel Energy’s latest resource plan. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) pared back Xcel’s $15 billion request to build wind, solar, batteries, and new transmission lines by around $3 billion last week. The PUC’s trimming of Xcel’s request came as it approved an alternative resource […]
Bootleggers, Baptists, and the Clean Energy Transition
Independence Institute has a long track record of warning against the unhealthy incentives that can arise from the relationship between monopoly electric utilities and green policymakers. Once viewed as rivals of one another, the two sides realized a few years back that coexisting as fellow travelers on the road to the so-called clean energy transition […]
The Rotten Political Incentives of the Utility Industry
The monopoly electric utility business model is rife with problems. Chief among them is the regulatory capture it invites. Monopoly utilities tend to reflect the political environment in which they are situated. This is no accident. They know where their bread is buttered and are more than happy to play along with the ambitious energy […]
Colorado’s Energy Future: The High Cost of 100% Renewable Electricity by 2040
Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D.) campaigned for his first term in office on a platform of transitioning the state to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040. In his first year in office, Polis unveiled an official government “roadmap” to do just that. Since then, he has signed into law no fewer than 55 climate bills […]
