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Fewer panels but more juice with Spanish Peaks in the distance

 

by Allen Best

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association continues its investment in solar generation, in part because of dramatically more enticing economics since its first major installation in 2010.

The latest installation, the 140-megawatt Spanish Peaks Solar, lies in southern Colorado, northeast of Trinidad, and has a handsome view of the namesake twin peaks in the Sangre de Cristo Range. They are also known as Huajatolla, the name assigned by the Comanche who once inhabited that area.

The new Spanish Peaks solar project began commercial operations the day after Christmas 2024.

Deriva Energy developed the project after acquiring it from JUWI Inc. in 2024. This is Deriva Energy’s sixth utility-scale renewable project in Colorado.

Tri-State is adding 595 megawatts of solar resources during 2024 and 2025. It is also adding solar capacity at Axial Basin, at the site of the ColoWyo Mine between Craig and Meeker, and another solar project in Dolores County. Both will be owned directly by Tri-State, a first, instead of the generation being secured through power-purchase agreements.

This newest project has been supported by the federal government’s $2.5 billion award in low-cost financing to Tri-State through the New ERA (Empowering Rural America) program. The funding has 18 components, this being just one.

Tri-State, once heavily invested in coal, closed its lone coal plant in New Mexico in 2019 and plans to be gone from coal in Colorado by 2028.

Tri-State expects to be at 50% renewable energy by late 2025, according to Duane Highley, the chief executive.

One measure of the improved economics of solar can be found in two projects in New Mexico developed for Tri-State. The first project, Cimarron, was commissioned in 2010 and required 500,000 panels for 30 megawatts of capacity. A solar installation of 200 megawatts at Escalante, the former coal plant, used the same number of solar panels, according to Lee Boughey, the vice president of communications at Tri-State.

Construction of these solar projects seems to have not suffered inordinately from supply chain problems, said Boughey. He said Tri-State is not immune to cost and availability pressure. “It is constantly part of our planning,” he said.

 

New transmission line

Tri-State also expects completion of its 230-kilovolt transmission line in eastern Colorado between Burlington and Lamar in January. Construction started in February 2024.

Coupled with other upgrades, the new line will accommodate more than 700 megawatts of potential new generating capacity.

It will also improve reliability in the Lamar area and reduce or eliminate generation curtailment, especially around Tri-State’s Burlington and Lamar substations.

Allen Best
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