COLORADO GIVES XCEL ‘GO’ FOR BIG NEW ENERGY BUILD

Xcel to boost its wind, solar power supply in Colorado

Cathy Proctor, December 10. 2013 (Denver Business Journal)

"State regulators have granted Xcel Energy Inc.’s request to boost the amount of wind and solar power on its Colorado system by 25 percent, or 620 megawatts…[adding to its 250 megawatts of solar and 2,177 megawatts of wind]… The new power supplies will meet Xcel’s customers’ demands for electricity through at least 2018…Of the new power supplies, 450 megawatts will come from wind farms and an additional 170 from large-scale solar power plants… When the plan was proposed [in September], David Eves, the CEO of Xcel’s subsidiary, Public Service Company of Colorado, said the solar projects…were cost-competitive with natural gas-generated power. It was the first time Xcel had seen solar projects ‘make the cut’ in direct price competition with natural gas…” click here for more

Update: Boulder voters continued to support the community solar effort and defeated Xcel in the last election. The movement’s leaders dislike Xcel’s most recent New Energy plan because it relies largely on centralized solar instead of distributed rooftop solar.

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