Editor’s note: This story has been updated to note that Tri-State’s newly planned wind and solar farms will grow its wind and solar power generation portfolio by 45 percent, and that Tri-State also purchases some hydropower. Boulder-based juwi was selected to develop a solar field project that, along with a new wind farm project announced Tuesday, will grow a regional power transmitter’s wind and solar renewable energy generation portfolio by 45 percent. Westminster-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association — a nonprofit serving electricity cooperatives across 200,000 square miles of Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming — said in a news release the juwi project will add 100 megawatts of solar power generation on Tri-State’s grid. The system of 300,000 sun-capturing panels will be called Spanish Peaks Solar Project. It will cover 660 acres adjacent to the 30-megawatt San Isabel Solar Project in Las Animas County, which also was developed by juwi for Tri-State and began producing power in 2016. The new project will be able to serve the energy needs of 28,000 rural homes once it is operational in 2023. Construction is expected to begin in 2022. Spanish Peaks, together with Tri-State’s planned 104-megawatt Crossing Trails Wind Farm being built by EDP Renewables, substantially bolsters the electricity association’s green energy footprint in Colorado. Crossing Trails will be built about 20 miles south of Seibert in Kit Carson and Cheyenne counties. The new wind farm is expected to be operational in 2020. A spokesman for Tri-State declined to share the electricity transmitter’s respective purchase prices of the wind and solar power. “Juwi is proud to support the economically-savvy and environmentally-sound vision of Tri-State and will continue working with Tri-State and the people of Las Animas County to ensure the Spanish Peaks Solar Project delivers reliable solar energy for many years to come,” juwi CEO Michael Martin said. “As a Colorado company, our team is particularly excited to develop, build and operate a power plant of this magnitude within our home state.” Tri-State already had 452 megawatts-worth of wind and solar assets before this year’s announcements of the new projects, and also purchases just more than 21.5 megawatts of hydropower. That accounts for nearly a third of the total energy consumed by the 43 cooperatives — such as its largest customer Brighton-based United Power, serving the four-town Carbon Valley area, Broomfield and parts of Erie — to which it sells wholesale power. But Tri-State policies surrounding renewable energy and battery projects have recently been criticized by United Power, which has urged its fellow cooperatives under the regional wholesaler to push for more flexible and partial contracts. Tri-State requires its members to buy wholesale power exclusively from it, and allows members to self-generate only 5 percent of their total demand load, limiting how much renewable energy members can self-generate, and forcing them to rely on Tri-State adding utility-scale assets like Crossing Trails and Spanish Peaks to its grid for greener portfolios. Tri-State also has classified battery storage systems, such as United Power’s Tesla project that is the largest battery in Colorado, as generation assets, meaning their capacities count toward the 5 percent caps, and that large portions of savings expected from such projects cannot be realized by members due to Tri-State’s billing policies. United Power is still negotiating with Tri-State on the valuation of the massive battery. “This is an important discussion not only for United Power but the overall electric industry, especially since battery costs are coming down,” United Power New Energy Director Jerry Marizza said. United Power’s plans to introduce Tri-State bylaw amendments to allow for partial, more flexible transmission contracts at the wholesaler’s annual meeting in April have not changed with this year’s announcements of Tri-State’s two new renewable energy projects. “A lot of details of what that membership looks like will need to be negotiated (with Tri-State) in the coming months,” Marizza said. Tri-State also selected a new CEO, Duane Highley, to replace Mike McInnes, who is retiring in April, and United Power is “at least initially encouraged by the selection,” Marizza said. “If passed by the membership, the proposed bylaw change would then allow the board to consider additional classes of membership,” Tri-State spokesman Lee Boughey said. “Additional classes of membership could provide current and future members more flexibility, while still meeting their contractual obligations to the other members.” Sam Lounsberry: 303-473-1322, slounsberry@prairiemountainmedia.com and twitter.com/samlounz.
A subsidiary of German renewable energy company juwi will develop a 30 MW solar farm for Colorado's Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association. The 660-acre Spanish Peaks solar project is close to the 100 MW San Isabel scheme in Las Animas County, which juwi also developed for Tri-State, and began operating in 2016. Work on the latest project is set to begin in 2022 and the farm is scheduled to go live the year after.