When Comanche 3 began producing electricity in 2010, the coal-burning unit at Pueblo, Colo., was projected to continue operations to 2070. Now, it’s an open question whether it will continue operations beyond 2030.
Legislative renewable energy mandates came first, but lower costs and now sweeping statewide economy decarbonization goals have pushed the pivot in electrical generation.
Covid-19 has impacted electrical utilities by cutting demand, slowing development of renewable energy, and causing executives to fret about revenue. Some changes will be temporary, others permanent.
To get to 100% renewables for electrical production won’t be as simple as going to the wind and solar shelf and stocking up. That can get utilities to 50% easily enough, perhaps even 70% or 80%, conceivably even 90%.
Opponents of municipalizing Pueblo’s electrical supply emphasized fear and uncertainty, the same sideboards of the coronavirus pandemic.
A Trojan horse, deceit, and subterfuge—United Power says it was all there as wholesale supplier Tri-State Generation and Transmission assembled a strategy to make sure it would have to stay “imprisoned” in its contract with Tri-State through 2050, foregoing savings in lower-cost renewable energy and avoiding regulators in Colorado.
Two of three biggest members of Tri-State Generation and Transmission say they’re very unhappy with the new policies that are purported to provide transparency and increase member flexibility. Together, the two co-ops by July will represent upwards of 25% of the total demand among the by-then 42 members of Tri-State.
In 2006, directors of Delta-Montrose Electric were asked to commit to the middle of the 21st century to a coal plant to be built in the Kansas prairie. They had a different vision. More slowly, that wholesale provider, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, created a new vision, too, forced by the upheaval in the world of energy that is just now beginning.
Two interpretations of the Clean Water Act in Colorado, one involving a silver mine near Ouray and the second the sugar beet factory at Fort Morgan, figured into the U.S. Supreme Court decision involving groundwater pollution in Hawaii.
Supporters of Black Hills Energy assembled a $1.5 million campaign to defeat municipalization of the electrical utility in Pueblo, most of that money coming from unidentified sources. Can David prevail against these financial odds?
In an interview with proponents of municipalization of electrical power in Pueblo, Frances Koncilja, a former PUC commissioner in Colorado, accused Black Hills of being a rogue utility and an energizer vampire, sweet and cuddly by day, but by night trying to figure out how to steal every last dime out of Colorado’s steel town.
Pueblo voters on May 5 will decide whether to stick with their existing electrical utility, Black Hills Energy, or municipalize operations. Proponents and opponents frame their arguments in terms of opportunity and risk. The fulcrum for the debate is the high cost of electricity in Pueblo, which is among the highest in Colorado.
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