A Golden homeowner’s plan to add solar panels was thwarted when the transformer in his neighborhood couldn’t handle another solar installation. Xcel Energy told him he’d have to pay $7,000 for a new transformer.

In Westminster, a builder was told that it would cost $10 million in upgrades to hook his housing project to the grid and a plan for an electrical vehicle fast charger in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood using a state grant, was scrapped for the same reason.

Meanwhile, nearly 300 megawatts of community solar gardens are sitting and waiting to be connected to the grid, according to the Colorado Solar and Storage Association, or COSSA, an industry trade group.

Across the Xcel Energy grid, stories of new demands for electricity taxing the distribution system — the wires that bring power to homes and businesses and take away solar-generated electricity — are being told.

“It has been a growing problem,” said Mike Kruger, CEO and president of COSSA.

For years there has been little growth in the electric load and while Xcel Energy made major investments in renewable generation and high-voltage transmission, there was less focus in Colorado and across the county on the distribution systems.

“The infrastructure is already under-maintained and more vulnerable,” said Emilie Olson, a principal at Advanced Energy United, a lobbying group for major grid users and renewable energy companies. “It’s been neglected.”

A bill now speeding through the state legislature is aiming to change that. The legislation, Senate Bill 218, will task Xcel Energy with developing immediate and long-term plans to address the backlog of projects and stresses on the grid.

It will also give the utility the financial resources to do the work, allowing it to temporarily raise funds above its current rates and in the long-term add a fee, or rider, onto customer bills to pay for projects.

“We need to account for the fact that increased load does have a cost,” Senate President Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat and cosponsor of the bill, told a Senate Finance Committee hearing. “There are investments that need to be made.”

Upgrading the grid is crucial to greening power generation

Upgrading the distribution grid plays into the state’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by adding more rooftop solar, shifting to renewable generation to power EVs, electrify homes and businesses, and fill storage batteries.

The bill is supported by Xcel Energy, labor unions and electrical contractors, energy industry trade groups and a host of environmental groups, including Conservation Colorado and Green Latinos. 

The bill was introduced April 24, had a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee the evening of April 29, a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee the following morning, and was passed by the Senate and sent to the House that afternoon.

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