Topics: State Policy, PUCs, Transmission, Distributed Energy Resources, Virtual Power Plants, Colorado
Topics: State Policy, Advanced Transportation, Maryland, New York, Electric Vehicles, Colorado
Just as you wouldn’t set off on a great American road trip using a 50-year-old paper map, Colorado shouldn’t be making decisions about regional electricity markets using 20-year-old assumptions about the western grid. Choosing the wrong market could lead to some very expensive mistakes, burdening ratepayers with higher costs and lower reliability and steering Colorado’s clean energy ambitions into a dead end.
A regional electricity market is among the most powerful tools in the toolbox for lowering electricity costs, improving reliability and resiliency to extreme weather events, and integrating Colorado’s abundant renewable resources into a 100% clean grid. In the next few months, Colorado utilities like Xcel Energy and Tri-State will have the opportunity to join with neighboring states and utilities in a regional market, and the benefits have the potential to be great. Colorado’s participation in a regional market could allow the state to trade electricity across the West, tapping into resources like hydro from the Northwest or geothermal from Nevada. In return, it could sell excess clean energy produced by local wind and solar.
Topics: State Policy, Western RTO, Colorado
In May 2023, Xcel Energy Colorado filed its inaugural Gas Infrastructure Plan (GIP). Not only was this a first for Colorado, but in a national regulatory landscape light on gas utility oversight, it was also among the first of its kind nationwide. With the gas industry facing unprecedented headwinds – and in light of changing policy, technology, and market conditions – states are looking for new tools to understand and evaluate gas infrastructure investments. Colorado is at the forefront of that change, with state, city, and county emissions reduction policies and programs layered on top of generous state and federal rebates and incentives for clean appliances. In addition, gas commodity and infrastructure costs are rising, and innovation and scale are happening in the cold-climate heating solutions marketplace. All of these beg the question: how do we align long-lived, ratepayer-funded utility infrastructure investments with these long-term trends while still providing for our energy needs in the near term?
Topics: Energy Efficiency, Building Electrification, Building Decarbonization, Colorado