Xcel Energy gets a very big green light

PUC commissioners approve plans for up to 4,100 megawatts of new renewable energy, storage, and a bit of natural gas

by Allen Best

Xcel Energy has been authorized by Colorado officials to acquire 4,100 megawatts of new energy generation.

How much electricity is that? Enough to meet the needs of a million homes. Or a certain numbers of data centers, for that matter.

The Polis administration wanted to emphasize that this action will save Xcel customers a boatload of money by taking quick advantage of soon-to-expire federal tax credits.

“Today’s action locks in cost savings for Xcel customers as we work to replace aging coal plants and meet growing energy demand,” said Rebecca White, director of the Public Utilities Commission.

“This was an extraordinary effort on the part of multiple stakeholders to bring these projects forward quickly in order to leverage expiring tax credits and save ratepayers billions. The commissioners, in turn, closely reviewed these projects on a very tight timeline to ensure the best mix possible for ratepayers.

The PUC approval will allow 3,200 megawatts in projects to move forward immediately. An additional 600 to 900 megawatts may potentially go forward.

The 10 projects approved to go forward include wind, solar, storage and one natural gas plant of 200 megawatts capacity.

Three of the projects approved will be in areas that the state has designated as “just transition” communities, i.e. places where coal plants will be closing. At least one of the three projects will be in Pueblo County.

The projects approved include wind, solar and batteries but also 200 megawatts of natural gas-fueled generation.

Ellen Howard Kutzer, the general counsel for Colorado Solar and Storage Association, called the decision a major move for Colorado and credited the PUC commissioners with acting as quickly as the situation demanded.

This is just part of a major expansion of renewable energy for Xcel. Additional new generation is also expected to be approved as part of Xcel Energy’s Just Transition solicitation.

In October 2024, Xcel had told the PUC that it expected to need 14,000 megawatts (14 gigawatts) of new generating capacity, partly to replace retiring coal plants at Craig and Hayden but also in expectation of major growth in demand.

The company said that it expected about two-thirds of that additional demand to come from data centers and other large industrial users. Much of the rest of the new growth was projected to come from new electric vehicles and the switch from gas to electricity in heating homes.

The PUC commissioners have discounted a certain amount of that projected growth demand, but not all it.

Donald Trump was elected president about three weeks after that PUC filing and on July 4^,2025, he signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. That law gutted many of the federal tax provisions adopted by Congress and signed into law in 2022 by President Joe Biden.

That created the impetus to move quickly to get as many projects started in time to qualify for the federal tax incentives.

On Aug. 1, 2025, Gov. Jared Polis issued a letter of that intent and outlining the timeline. To secure projects, he wrote, Colorado will work to investigate and eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies in deploying, wind, solar, and battery storage resources to the electrical grid…”

The PUC acted quickly, although Pueblo County pushed back on plans to close its two remaining coal-burning units at Comanche Generating Station.

Big Pivots hopes to achieve a deeper dive on this in coming days.