Brown on Green

Denver Post highlights fight over "green-power" tranmission line

By Jerry Brown
BrownOnGreen.Net

There's an interesting story in today's Denver Post about billionaire rancher Louis Bacon's opposition to plans by Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to build a transmission line across his ranch in southern Colorado.

There's a delicious irony to this story. Many environmentalists who probably would be on Bacon's side if the transmission line was designed to move electricity from traditional power plants see him as a villain because the line would serve giant solar-energy farms in the San Luis Valley.

New transmission lines, like the one opposed by Bacon, are essential for Colorado's goal of increasing the use of renewable energy.

But Bacon's opposition along with other local opposition to similar facilities elsewhere in the state are good reminders that "clean" and "environmentally friendly" are sometimes in the eye of the beholder. And bringing more green energy to the state will require negotiations that weren't foreseen even a few years ago.

Xcel Energy makes major wind-energy purchase

By Jerry Brown
BrownonGreen.Net

Xcel Energy has signed a 20-year-agreement to buy 250 megawatts of power from Renewable Energy Systems Americas’ proposed Cedar Point Wind facility to be built in Lincoln and Elbert counties southeast of Denver.

The entire output of the facility, which will produce enough electricity to power 68,000 homes, will go to Xcel Energy.  RES said it will use wind turbines built in Colorado by Vestas.

Construction will begin this year and create 100 to 200 jobs, RES said.  There will be up to 12 permanent jobs once the facility goes into commercial operation next year, the company added.

Renewable Energy Systems Americas is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado.

Governor’s Office: Transmission Lines Needed for Renewable Energy

By Jerry Brown
BrownonGreen.Net

One of the challenges to implementing Colorado’s new renewable-energy law will be building the high-voltage transmission lines needed to move electricity from utility-scale wind and solar facilities in remote parts of the state to heavily populated areas along the Front Range, says an official of the Governor’s Energy Office.

Gov. Bill Ritter signed H.B. 1001 into law on Monday.  It requires Xcel Energy to use renewable energy for 30 percent of the power it delivers to customers by 2020.

The new law, championed by the governor’s office and supported by Xcel Energy, increases a 20-percent-by-2020 renewable-energy requirement -- the “20x20 goal” -- approved by the legislature in 2007.

There’s plenty of solar and wind energy in the state to meet the new goal, says Morey Wolfson, transmission program manager for the Governor’s Energy Office.

He says the state has identified the potential for more than 96,000 megawatts of wind-generated electricity and more than 26,000 megawatts of solar-generated electricity in the state.  That’s nearly nine times what the state’s total electrical-generating capacity was in 2008.

But “transmission is … a missing link that threatens to lead the state to a genuine energy crisis,” according to the 100-page Renewable Energy Development Infrastructure (REDI) report published by the Governor's Energy Office in December.  So, getting the electricity to major population areas may be the real challenge.

“Although the new renewable energy generation built to date in Colorado has been able to connect to the existing transmission system, the system is close to meeting its physical ability to accept injection of new utility-scale renewable energy generation,” the REDI report says.

The utility-scale wind-generation capacity in Colorado is concentrated in eight resource generation development areas (GDAs), mostly in eastern Colorado.  The solar-generation capacity is concentrated in two GDAs in southern Colorado, one in the San Luis Valley and one the Arkansas Valley south and southeast of Pueblo.

In all likelihood, only a small fraction of that renewable capacity will ever be turned into electricity-producing wind or solar facilities, Wolfson says.  And there are may be arguments, at least in some localities involved, about wind or solar projects that are proposed.

But building the transmission lines needed to get the energy to where it’s needed may be where the real arguments will occur.  And the estimated price tag for the new lines is about $700 million.  So, paying for the new lines may be an issue.  Although transmission costs are significant, they typically are no more than 7percent of a customer's total utility bill, Wolfson says.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission held hearings last month on what is proving to be a controversial proposal to build a high-voltage transmission line, called the SoCo line, from Pueblo to Alamosa in the San Luis Valley.  It would extend south from the Comanche Power Plant in Pueblo to Walsenburg and then west through La Veta Pass to Alamosa.

The fight over the SoCo line isn’t an isolated case.  Last year, local opposition killed proposed transmission lines in Idaho and California.

Wolfson discussed the REDI report this week at the monthly meeting of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES).  Copies of the REDI report are available online as a PDF document.  Paper copies are available on request from the Governor’s Energy Office.