Neighborhood scale batteries and more

Xcel aims for AI market, and Pivot Energy hopes to get in on neighborhood-scale battery storage in the metro area

At an energy forum on June 17 sponsored by the Arvada Chamber, four individuals representing various sectors of the energy conversation in Colorado spoke briefly after the keynote was delivered by the moderator, Dan Haley.

Highlights of what they shared:

Adam Weber, director of offsite solutions for Pivot Energy, a national company, said that energy has become. “a little bit of a political football, both on the clean energy side and the fossil fuel side.”

Pivot Energy focuses not on big energy plants but instead on distributed resources. It has a history in community solar development. “We try to locate our projects close to distribution systems to serve the load where it’s needed most,” he said.

Distributed batteries are now part of the company’s focus. These batteries are to be set up in neighborhoods. They’re larger than the Tesla wall batteries but smaller than the giant rows of batteries now being built in conjunction with solar. They could be placed on neighborhood parking lots or in conjunction with businesses.

The purpose of these neighborhood-scale batteries would be to interface with the grid, responding to prices for electricity and variable supplies of renewables and other sources of electricity. The small ones enable them to fit into the grid where some of the pressure points are most acute.

A law approved in the 2024 session, SB24-207, required investor-owned utilities in Colorado — i.e. Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy — to push forward distributed generation paired with battery storage. In response, Xcel is now soliciting proposals for distributed battery storage from Pivot Energy and other developers.

“Right now, I’m working on 30 projects, a lot of them in the Denver metro area,” said Weber. “We hope to participate in that program.”

This, he said, is an “important part of the mix. I think it complements things like community solar but also other forms of energy as well.”

Andrew Holder, Xcel Energy’s director of community relations and local government affairs, said the company has electric rates 37% below the national average. “We are continuing to make investments and leading the clean energy transition here in Colorado while making sure that we keep affordability at the forefront.”

As for data centers, he said, they’re not new. Aurora has had nine data centers since 1994. They are crucial to the banking industry to keep data secure. Xcel, he said, hopes to have 6,000 megawatts of generating capacity devoted to serving data centers by the end of 2031 across the eight states where it has operations.

Jennifer Gremmert, CEO of Energy Outreach Colorado, answered a question from Dan Haley, the moderator, about Xcel electricity rates that he said are projected to rise 55% by 2029 compared to 2024 levels.

Between 25% and 30% of Coloradans are eligible for the programs her organization is designed to serve. “The average person that we help pay their energy bills is a single mother earning less than $40,000 a year,” she said.

Ray Rivera, coalition director for Colorado Energy Crossroads, described the formation of his relatively new organization, which he said seeks to bridge gaps among groups who don’t always sit at the same table unless they’re across from each other.