Colorado's newest biggest battery

And Xcel Energy will add more from planning begun in 2016 — with much more coming beyond this wave.

Colorado now has its largest battery ever and its second-largest solar installation.

The project east of Pueblo, near Avondale, has 100 megawatt-hours of battery storage, surpassing the 5 megawatt-hours at the Spring Valley Campus above Glenwood Springs that formally began use in November 2022.

See: A biggest ever in Colorado for battery storage.

Much more can be expected as Xcel completes its plans that were triggered by its electric resource planning process in 2016. That plan approved by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission ultimately calls for 275 megawatt-hours in Pueblo and Adam counties.

More battery storage yet will almost certainly be coming on line during the next several years, the result of the electric resource plan most recently approved by the PUC for Xcel. That plan approved by PUC commissioners in 2022 calls for 400 megawatt-hours of battery storage to go along with 1,600 megawatts of solar and 2,300 megawatts of wind energy.

The Thunder Wolf Energy Center will have 248 megawatts of solar energy, making it the second biggest solar installation in Colorado. Still largest is the Bighorn Solar project, which comes in at 300 megawatts. It is located on land adjacent to Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo that is owned by Rocky Mountain Steel.

This project, however, is located on Colorado State Land Board property, which will get revenue from lease payments. NextEra Energy Resources is the developer and sells the power to Xcel via a power-purchase agreement.

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