More big buckets of money for electrical cooperatives

But will the three provisional grants arrive? We do have an imminent change at the White House.

by Allen Best

More buckets of money have arrived on the Inflation Reduction Act conveyor belt for electrical cooperatives in Colorado. This latest round totaled $4.37 billion nationally.

Three electrical cooperatives expect to get letters of confirmation from the New ERA program shortly.

Brighton-based United Power is getting $262 million to offset the cost of the transition to a clean energy portfolio that will provide more than 760 megawatts of renewable energy resources on top of the current 300 megawatts of solar, hydropower, and wind energy.

Sedalia-based CORE Electrical Cooperative will use the $225 million in New ERA funding to procure 550 megawatts of wind and solar energy plus 100 megawatts of battery energy storage. CORE projects the grant-enabled projects will go on-line during the next 10 years. Just how quickly the projects get developed will depend in part upon transmission and supply chain issues, said Amber King, communications manager for CORE.

Steamboat Springs-based Yampa Valley Electric Association will use its $50 million to procure up to 150 megawatts of solar energy and 75 megawatts of battery energy storage in northwestern Colorado.

In its announcement, Yampa Valley said the “milestone brings us one step closer to securing a power purchase agreement” but did not identify specifically where the generation and storage will be. But Scott Blecke, the CEO, said the grant “provides an opportunity to help stabilize energy costs.”

In announcing the awards, the Department of Agriculture also announced that three other Colorado electrical cooperatives were among the six selected to move forward to receive future New ERA funding. They are Grand Junction-based Grand Valley Rural Power Lines Inc., Granby-based Mountain Parks Electric, and Ridgway-based San Miguel Power Association.

How certain are the cooperatives of actually getting the money? President-elect Donald Trump and his appointees have very different outlooks about what constitutes forward-progress than has been evident in the administration of Joe Biden. Might the stop-switch be yanked on this conveyor belt?

Nobody really knows for sure, but Grand Valley, for one, remains “cautiously optimistic that the grant funding will come through,” despite the potential of obstacles, says Tom Walch, the CEO. “Grand Valley Power has worked hard to qualify for this New ERA grant opportunity. It will provide significant benefits for our members for years. There could still be obstacles, but we are cautiously optimistic that the grant funding will come through.”

The New ERA (Empowering Rural America) program was created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 as a way of helping rural America very specifically move beyond fossil fuel generation. Electrical cooperatives were created by federal legislation (and with federal aid) in 1936 to serve rural areas that investor-owned utilities found too sparsely populated to economically justify extending transmission and distribution lines.

Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission, a wholesale supplier for 17 of Colorado’s 22 electrical cooperatives as well as cooperatives in three surrounding states, was a major force in creating that provision within the 2022 federal law. It intends to use its award, which was announced in September and October, to help retire its coal-burning units in Craig as well as in Arizona.

Ironically, Colorado’s two biggest electrical cooperatives – other than Tri-State – to receive awards both serve areas that now include large urbanized areas.

CORE has 180,000 members in a service territory that extends from Woodland Park, west of Colorado Springs, to Deer Trail, east of Denver. Most of the members, however, are in the Castle Rock and Parker area.

United has 113,000 members but delivers more electricity than CORE because of its heavy concentration of light-industrial users along the I-76 and I-25 corridors as well as its role in the oil and gas drilling of Weld County. Its service territory extends into the foothills west of Arvada.