United Power's $250 million bet on natural gas

Fast-growing electrical cooperative north of Denver celebrates completion of 162-megawatt Mountain Peak Power Plant in perhaps record 20 months

The story in brief:

United has rapidly assembled generation and storage assets since it left Tri-State G&T in May 2024.
CEO Mark Gabriel credits board of directors with the “moxie” to take a risk.
Supply chains since then have dramatically lengthened.
U.S. Rep Lauren Boebert decries regulations that she said are creating poverty.

by Allen Best

A record may have been set at the Mountain Peak Power Plant about 35 miles northeast of Denver.

From the green light given by directors of United Power until the ribbon snipping that occurred in late August, it took just 20 months to get permitting and construction of a new 162-megawatt natural gas plant called Mountain Peak Power completed.

“I have been in this business for more than three decades, and I can tell you, I have never seen a project get done so quickly,” said Mark Gabriel, the chief executive of United, at the celebration of the plant’s completion on Aug. 28.

Gabriel credited his board for its willingness to take a risk — a decision that now looks prescient give the fast-growing supply chain issues for components of natural gas plants.

“We had a decision to make. The board had the moxie to say, yes, we will stand by and pay for these units whether or not this plant gets built. That was a $250 million bet. Now we did this in 20 months.”

If the board had dithered, Gabriel suggested, the cost to United’s members for electricity would be much higher and the completion of this gas plant would have come much later.

“I have been hearing from our friends at GE Vernova that if we were to order (gas) units today, it would take four years. I was just told this morning it will take five plus 18 months for construction.”

The gas plant has six General Electric combustion turbines that are considered “hydrogen ready,” which means the plant can also run on fuels with hydrogen content when they are commercially available.

Beyond the speed of completion of the gas plant built in partnership with Kindle Energy, the major story is how United sees the future. It has been adding wind and especially solar. It also sees natural gas as a critical component to the future.

A Brighton-based electrical cooperative, United serves a broad swath of landscape from the oil and gas fields north and east of Denver to the foothills west of Arvada. Importantly, its members include the fast-developing commercial corridor along Interstate 76.

Stephen Whiteside, president of the board of directors of United Power, wields the ceremonial scissors for the ribbon, flanked by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert and Mark Gabriel, the CEO. Photos/Allen Best

United had been getting electricity from Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association until May 2024. By then, it was responsible for more than 20% of the electricity delivered to Tri-State’s customers in Colorado and three other states.

Under the leadership of Gabriel, United launched a strategy of what he calls hyper-localization. That includes procurement of solar from within United’s service territory and some beyond.

Gabriel arrived at United in 2021 after running regional operations for the Western Area Power Administration from an office in Lakewood. WAPA distributes power from Glen Canyon and other dams, 57 altogether, and distributes it via an extensive system of transmission lines.

“I was in transmission, and I will always say I love big iron,” Gabriel told several dozen people assembled for the celebration a few miles northwest of Keenesburg. “The reality is, we can’t build enough transmission to support the growing needs in Colorado, certainly for United Power, by the time we need it. We can’t rely on large scale generation to come in. What we have to do is figure out local solutions with local resources that bring local tax dollars and local jobs.”

The new gas plant is located amid the plentiful natural gas of the Wattenberg Field. IT is supplied by a gas line that existed adjacent to the site prior to construction.

United has also invested in battery storage. Adjoining the Mountain Peaks Power gas turbines is an enclosure with 11.8 megawatts of lithium-ion batteries. Last year it added nearly 120 megawatts of lithium-ion batteries in Brighton and various other locations within its service territory. Those batteries very nearly paid for themselves immediately, said Gabriel, as they allowed United to avoid buying expensive electricity from markets to meet demands posed by high summer temperatures.

This natural gas plant is somewhat similarly designed to enable United to meet peak demands, and Gabriel suggested it will be just as good an investment.

Critical to getting the plant built so quickly was the regulatory landscape. Weld County approved the project within 10 months. United is not under the purview of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.

The president of the board of directors, Steve Whiteside spoke, as did a Weld County commissioner, Jason Maxey, who happened to have been a United employee for 10 years prior to his entering the political sphere.

No words of sorrow about the loss of coal were spoken at the celebration, although there were several mentions of “clean burning natural gas.”

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, in whose district the new gas plant is located, also spoke.

She said that she had been a resident of Weld County for just a year but had considered herself an honorary resident the moment that Weld County said in 2021 that it was leaving Colorado to join Wyoming. “I have always admired just the grit and tenacity to drill baby drill in Weld County,” she said.

That declaration went nowhere, and in fact, Weld County voters by a signiciant margin had rejected something similar in 2013, the idea of creating a separate state.

Boebert then defined what she described as a problem:

“It’s unfortunate when we see regulations come down from the top that really regulate us into poverty. We’ve seen this throughout our entire state, where energy development has unnecessarily become more difficult and more stringent, and counties and communities that once were thriving now struggle to make ends meet when that revenue is no longer coming into those areas, and then the burden is put on the taxpayers.”

It sounded good if devoid of facts. For that matter, some of United’s members include companies engaged in and benefitting from the energy transition.

This story was corrected to specify the amount of battery storage that United Power has added, both at the Mountain Peaks Power Plant and elsewhere in its service territory.