Renewables continue to gain in Colorado

A dip in percentage during July, but still responsible for 53.3% of electricity in Colorado in 2026

During July, renewables delivered 48.8% of Colorado’s electricity, the first month of 2026 that the percentage fell below 50%. To be clear, renewables continued to deliver, but demand was higher, presumably because of air conditioning.

However, the story as reported by Big Pivots since June remains fundamentally the same. Renewables now constitute the majority of electrical generation in Colorado during 2026. Through July, renewables have been 53.5%, reports Ron Sinton after scouring the Energy Information Administration reports.

By a different measuring stick, August 2025 through July 2026, renewables were responsible for 50.3% of Colorado’s electricity. That’s a first for Colorado.

As for the July figure of 48.3%,that compares with 41.5% during the same month in 2025.

Part of this story lies in increasing capacity of utility-scale batteries operated by Xcel Energy and other utilities.

Maybe an even bigger part of the story is the continued rapid development of renewable energy, both wind and solar during the last year, much of it in eastern Colorado. The projects are almost entirely in the pipeline before President Donald Trump was elected with his agenda of opposing renewables at every turn.

On the wind side of that fence, we have addition of Dusty Rose Wind, a 502-megawatt project in Kit Carson County (Burlington is the county seat).

As for solar, Sinton points out that solar as a market share grew 40% in July 2026 as compared to July 2025. Those projects that have gone in line during the last year include.:

Axial Basin, a project with a145 megawatts of capacity amid the solar hills near the former coal mine between Meeker and Craig. Juwi developed it and Tri-State G&T is the customer.
Dolores Canyon Solar, 110 megawatts, also a Juwi project for Tri-State. This project in southwest Colorado, north of Cortez, went on-line last October. It has a capacity of 110 megawatts.
Garnett Mesa, an 80-megawatt project near Delta that went on-line in September 2025.
Rocky Mountain Solar, which has 602 megawatts of solar capacity near Avondale, east of Pueblo.

Many others have come in recent years, and a boatload are coming in the next year or two in mostly the Great Plains east of I-25. That includes projects in Morgan County and Pueblo County.

The second phase of the Black Hollow Solar project east of Fort Collins has been completed, and the ribbon will be snipped Wednesday morning.

Part of that expansion is east of Fort Collins, within the municipal borders of Severance. There, NextEra has wrapped up development of 324-megawatts of solar capacity at the Black Hollow Solar project. The ribbon-snipping for the second phase will be Wednesday morning.

Notably, several of the above projects have associated battery storage.