The Western Slope energy cooperative says they’re on track to hit 90% renewable energy by the end of 2025 due to strides being made in wind and solar energy production. With building codes prioritizing solar energy and electrification, however, the power grid will increasingly face a surplus of energy at peak producing times when the demand is not as great. And when customer demand is higher on mornings and evenings, production of solar energy is lower.
“We’re going to have more of a good thing than we know to do with,” said Bryan Hannegan, president and CEO of Holy Cross Energy. “Part of the challenge is how do we start encouraging people to think about either not producing (energy) or storing that energy for later on so that they can use it at a time where we might otherwise have to go outside of our area and get power supplies from someplace else that may come with a higher price or a carbon footprint.”
The key to avoiding pulling energy with a carbon footprint is ensuring flexibility and storage of renewable energy, which will help eliminate the remaining percentage points of carbon-based energy in the race to 100% renewable.
Holy Cross is a not-for-profit energy cooperative founded in 1939 by Western Slope ranchers and farmers. The organization provides energy for more than 46,000 members on the Western Slope.
In 2020, Holy Cross set a goal to reach 100% carbon-free power supply by 2030 and offset greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2035 while maintaining service reliability and affordability.
They’re ahead of the curve with that goal, Hannegan told the Pitkin Board of County Commissioners at their Tuesday work session.
Holy Cross reported that in 2023, 50% of their power supply came from wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric power and coal mine methane recovery. Early 2024 estimates show 75% of their power coming from renewable sources, largely due to an eastern Colorado wind farm.
Located in Kit Carson County, the Bronco Plains II Energy Center sells 150 megawatts of energy to Holy Cross in the winter and 100 megawatts in the summer. The power purchase agreement came online late 2023 and Holy Cross credits the jump from 50% renewable energy to 75% to the wind farm.
Jenna Weatherred, vice president of member and community relations for Holy Cross, said with the elimination of a curtailment in the transmission line from Kit Carson County to the mountains, Holy Cross expects even more energy from Bronco Plains by the end of 2025.
They said that 65% of their power supply will come from wind by the end of 2025, followed by 13% solar. Coal and natural gas are expected to account for 7% and 3%, respectively.
Holy Cross offers a program to mitigate the cost of onsite battery power storage, Power+. Even with a billing structure to pay back the cost of the Tesla Powerwall 2 battery energy storage system through Holy Cross bills at 0% interest for 10 years, customers might pay up to $44,000 over the payback period — even with federal and state incentives.
Weatherred said that while she applauds counties’ efforts to incentivize solar in building codes, storage of grid- or onsite-generated solar energy is equally important.
“For 20 years, we’ve been saying solar’s great,” she said. “Those things are still true, but there are already times of the day that we have too much solar on the system.”
And as Holy Cross chases efficiency and their “100×30” goal, they move closer to a changed business model from an energy provider to a service provider.
“Our bigger worry, frankly, is that … we may actually not have enough demand growth to sustain the current business model relying on kilowatt hour sales,” Hannegan said. “For resilience, for flexibility on the grid, we may want to actively encourage people not to buy electricity from us. Which, as an electric utility in the business of selling electrons — at least currently — that’s an unnatural act.”
In a future of customers generating sufficient electricity, Hannegan and Weatherred said the cooperative would shift to a facilitator of energy movement. Hannegan likened this potential future role to a “Fed-Ex” of electricity, moving energy between customers — as everyone will need to call upon more electricity than they’ve produced at some point, he said.
That change would bring about a greater fee structure focus on delivery charges, Weatherred said. Holy Cross’s current energy rate for small residential customers is 11 cents per kilowatt hour. The co-op upped its fixed rates for customers, and small residential saw the greatest percentage increase.
Still, as the Roaring Fork Valley and the rest of the Holy Cross’s service area trend toward electrification, Commissioner Steve Child pointed out that demand for Holy Cross services will only increase.
“We’re approaching the 100% renewable, well, we’re moving the goalposts. As buildings are electrified, as cars are electrified and transportation systems … there’s going to be a lot more demand than we have now,” said Child. “We are going to need more renewable production, and we’re going to need more storage.”
Holy Cross will hold its annual meeting at 5 p.m. Thursday, June 6 at 4 Eagle Ranch in Wolcott, where the results of the current board of directors election for a Northern District seat will be announced.