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Major farmland owner sees huge upside to its investment in dryland farming country along Xcel Energy’s planned transmission line on the high plains

 

Crossroads Agriculture, which has 400,000 acres of land in production of wheat and milo in eastern Colorado as well as New Mexico and Kansas, has announced it will partner in development of two major solar projects in eastern Colorado near the towns of Haswell and Cheyenne Wells.

The capacity of the projects will be more than one gigawatt of photovoltaic solar energy, according to a press release.

This is part of what will almost certainly be far more renewable energy generation in eastern Colorado, both solar and wind, as Xcel Energy strings 550 to 600 miles of new double-circuit transmission in a loop around eastern Colorado. The transmission line will cost at least $1.7 billion.

While the new renewable will bolster treasuries of local schools and other governments, whether it can reinvigorate the dying farm and ranch towns is another matter.

The solar projects are to cover more than 7,500 acres of the Crossroad’s farmland near Cheyenne Wells and Haswell. Cheyenne Wells, the county seat of Cheyenne County, is near the Kansas border and south of Interstate 70. Haswell is located about 90 miles east and a little north of Pueblo.

Crossroads has entered into an agreement with a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources to develop the solar projects. The buyer of the energy has not been identified.

Many specific are lacking, such as whether these projects will depend upon Xcel Energy’s transmission line. Pressed for specifics, Next Era kissued a statement saying that it is “in the early stages of developing renewable energy projects on the Eastern Plains for Colorado. Our team is evaluating existing transmission infrastructure, landowner and county officials’ interest, as well as conducting environmental surveys.”

The agricultural company already has 30 wind turbines operating on its land in New Mexico and says it will have another 40 built on its land in Colorado in 2024. “Hundreds more are expected in the years to come,” said Stefan Soloviev, chairman of Crossroads Agriculture.

From his farms near Lamar and Yuma, John Stulp has been tracking the conversation about renewable generation. “There is a lot of activity right now,” he says. He cites the example of a case south of Grenada, where a company has offered to buy the farm for three to four times the appraised value.

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But will this restore those small towns?

“My fear is that most of the population base has left,” says Stulp, who was the state ag commissioner in the administration of Gov. Bill Ritter.

Construction brings in workers, but then they leave and a minimal staff is needed for maintenance. There will be payments to landowners, and those royalties will help them.

“I am not sure it will rejuvenate some of the small communities to what they might have looked like the ‘50s and ‘60s,” he says.

Schools reflect that population loss. He cites his farm in country south of Lamar. Probably 50 families occupied the area 50 to 60 years ago. That had fallen to maybe 15 about the time that Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992. Today, there are just three families.

It’s just kind of depressing, the economic viability of these communities. You see a few nice homes, but for the most part they are pretty run down and a lot of times abandoned,” he says, describing towns like Grenada, Two Buttes, and even Springfield.

Agriculture has become more mechanized, with fewer people needed to work a section of land. Instead of people, farms have become much bigger and require more capital.

NextEra already has a giant presence in Colorado. The company calculates its wind and other projects are responsible for 11% of the market share of electricity sold in Colorado. It has $3.5 billion in capital investment. A map at the company’s website shows projects scattered from the Front Range east in Colorado. They include:

  • In 2020, it completed 225-megawatt Roundhouse wind farm just north of the Colorado-Wyoming border for delivery of electricity to Platte River Power Authority.
  • In 2021, it completed a 200-megawatt wind farm east of Sterling, in northeastern Colorado. It sells that power to Tri-State Generation and Transmission.
  • The Thunder Wolf Solar Energy Center in Pueblo County will go online this summer, delivering 200 megawatts of solar and 400 megawatt-hours of battery storage.

As for Crossroads, it is a division of a global company, Soloviev Group, which has  extensive operations in North America. The website says this:

“Working on the western edge of the region’s arable dryland, we utilize the latest in industry technology and data insights for maximum yield. From seed to harvest, we are pioneers in the implementation of dryland farming techniques, including the use of a land rotation system and drought-resistant crop varieties. Our methods have proved so successful that wheat and milo harvests in eastern Colorado now exceed the region’s grain elevator capacity, and the surplus must be piled on the ground at facilities operated by third parties. As part of the company’s integrated and efficient operations in the region, these facilities are served by the Soloviev Group’s Colorado Pacific Railroad.”

 

Top photo: Stefan Soloviev is chairman of Crossroads Agriculture.

 

Allen Best
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