Tri-State member co-op Delta-Montrose Electric Association (Montrose, Colo.) is teaming up with the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association to develop a local hydroelectric project. The two organizations plan to use the water coming through the Gunnison Tunnel, which currently irrigates the surrounding towns and will soon create electricity.
During the next several months, two renewable projects in Colorado and New Mexico are scheduled to begin producing more than four megawatts of capacity combined for Tri-State members Poudre Valley REA (Fort Collins, Colo.) and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative (Taos, N.M.).
A new 2.6-megawatt hydro plant at Carter Lake will begin producing power this summer for Poudre Valley REA.
The largest of the two facilities is the Carter Lake Hydroelectric Project, now under construction adjacent to the 112,000-acre-foot lake of the same name in northern Colorado.
Slated for commercial operation this summer, the new hydro plant will feature two horizontal Francis turbines capable of generating a maximum output of 2,600 kilowatts (2.6 megawatts) and is expected to generate approximately 7,000 megawatt-hours annually.
The Carter Lake hydro plant will be owned and operated by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. Poudre Valley REA will purchase the output of the plant under a power purchase agreement with the water district and Tri-State is providing support and financial incentives of both member projects under its board policies 115 and 117.
Continue reading ‘Members’ renewable projects to add a combined 4 megawatts’
The association’s board of directors approved Policy 115 generation contracts between Tri-State and two of its member systems for a total of three renewable projects at the March board meeting held earlier this week (March 13-14) in Westminster.
Both Poudre Valley REA and San Miguel Power are adding community solar projects to their porfolios this summer.
At Poudre Valley REA (Fort Collins, Colo.), the co-op recently announced the development of a 100-kilowatt solar garden by Clean Energy Collective, LLC, to be constructed this summer adjacent to the co-op’s headquarters building in Fort Collins. Under the terms of the agreement, Clean Energy Collective will own and operate the solar site and sell the output to Poudre Valley. The co-op, in turn, will provide its member-consumers with the opportunity to purchase solar panels to offset their electric use.
Within the service territory of San Miguel Power Association (Nucla, Colo.), a larger scale – one megawatt – community solar project, in which its members will be invited to subscribe, is also being developed this summer by the aforementioned Clean Energy Collective. The solar facility will be constructed in the Paradox Valley, west of Nucla.
Also, being added to San Miguel’s renewable portfolio is the 500-kilowatt output of one of the nation’s oldest hydroelectric facilities. Constructed in the late 1800s, the owners of Bridal Veil Hydro Project near Telluride, Colo., have inked a power purchase agreement with the Nucla-based co-op that is scheduled to begin by the end of this month and extend through the end of 2026.
Tri-State has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement to buy the electricity from the state’s newest planned renewable energy resource, the 67-megawatt Colorado Highlands Wind project. The facility will be built on a 5,200-acre site in northeast Colorado’s Logan County, within the service territory of Tri-State member co-op Highline Electric Association, and is scheduled to be operational by the end of the year.
The project will use GE wind turbine generators and will be developed by Colorado Highlands Wind, LLC, which is jointly owned by Alliance Power, Inc. of Littleton, Colo., and GE Energy Financial Services of Stamford, Conn. Financial terms of the contract are being held confidential and were not disclosed.
“Increasing the amount of renewable resources in our energy mix further diversifies our overall generation portfolio,” said Tri-State executive vice president and general manager Ken Anderson. “It not only attracts investment to the communities our member co-ops serve, but it also keeps us on schedule in assisting our members to meet their obligations under state renewable portfolio standards,” he said.
“Highline Electric is pleased to be in position to provide service to Colorado Highlands Wind and we’re looking forward to working with them during the construction process,” said Mark Farnsworth, manager of the local electric co-op. “We also appreciate the economic development opportunities that the project provides in our service territory.”
The agreement culminates a process begun in October 2011 when Tri-State issued a request for proposals for renewable energy supply, which resulted in nearly 50 responses consisting of a variety of technologies and potential locations.
Colorado Highlands Wind will be the third utility-scale renewable energy facility from which Tri-State receives all of the electrical output and renewable energy credits. In 2010 the wholesale power supplier began purchasing the electricity generated at the 51-megawatt Kit Carson Windpower Project in eastern Colorado as well as the 30-megawatt Cimarron Solar Facility in northeastern New Mexico.
In early February Empire Electric added the 72-kilowatt Red Wagon solar project to its renewable portfolio.
A new small solar plant recently began generating enough electricity to meet the power requirements of about 30 homes on the lines of Tri-State member co-op Empire Electric Association (Cortez, Colo.). The 72-kilowatt Red Wagon Energy project was constructed on a 1-acre site, within the town limits of Mancos, Colo., with the support of Tri-State board policies 115 and 117 for a 10-year contract term.
This new distributed generation facility is owned and operated by Red Wagon Energy. Its estimated annual output of 138,000 kilowatt-hours is being sold to Empire Electric through a power purchase agreement and is fed directly onto the local power grid.
“The power from this solar plant won’t go to any specific homes and it won’t alter anyone’s electric bill,” explained Doug Sparks, Empire’s member services manager. “However, this break-the-mold project introduces a shift, allowing a small renewable power plant to provide power to the grid, bolstering Empire’s capacity and renewable energy portfolio,” he added.
The Red Wagon project is the third renewable project that Empire has contracted with Tri-State under the G&T’s board policy 115/117 agreements. The southwest Colorado co-op also receives 20 kilowatts of output from a small community solar garden in which its consumers can subscribe for small blocks of renewable power, and it has a power purchase agreement for a 240-kilowatt hydroelectric plant located at a water treatment facility in Cortez.
The Taos (N.M.) Eco-Park is earning its name. Tri-State member Kit Carson Electric Cooperative celebrated the completion of a 60-kilowatt solar canopy installed in the parking lot at the sports facility with a ribbon cutting ceremony earlier this month. The array was designed to generate enough electricity to power stadium lights for three fields at the Eco-Park. The town has completed the first field, with other phases pending.
The winter 2012 issue of Network magazine is hot off the presses. The latest edition includes coverage of an open house at Southwestern Electric, which showcased the co-op’s recent energy efficient makeover of a former movie theatre and bowling alley into its new headquarters building.
Also featured is a unique project by Tri-State member United Power that is helping turn the Front Range’s trash into energy. Readers will also learn how Tri-State is helping to spread the word about electricity to elementary and middle schools through a partnership with the Colorado Foundation for Agriculture.
Finally, find out what the spring 2012 issue of Network magazine has in store in the “In our next issue” section. Network magazine is Tri-State’s quarterly publication that tells the stories of the people and communities of the G&T and its 44 member rural electric cooperatives. The current issue of Network magazine, as well as past issues, can also be found on Tri-State’s Internet site under News Center.
By year-end 2011, Tri-State member systems had at least 25 local renewable projects – either on-line or planned – that are projected to provide up to a combined 39 megawatts of renewable generating capacity for their member-consumers. These projects are facilitated and supported by Tri-State’s 115 and 117 board policies, as well as technical assistance, in some cases, from the G&T’s staff.
In 2011 alone, a small community solar garden was added at Empire Electric (Cortez, Colo.), two community solar arrays began production at Delta-Montrose Electric (Montrose, Colo.), a larger 1-megawatt capacity PV solar facility is generating for Kit Carson Electric (Taos, N.M.), a hydroplant began operation for San Luis Valley REC (Monte Vista, Colo.) and an existing hydroplant’s full capacity was purchased by San Miguel Power (Nucla, Colo.). In addition, the first landfill gas plant on a Tri-State member co-op’s system started generating power last fall for United Power (Brighton, Colo.).
In 2012, several Tri-State members are planning to bring some sizeable renewable projects on line – at one megawatt or larger. These will include the 9-megawatt Huerfano River Wind Project in southern Colorado, which will generate power for Sangre de Cristo Electric (Buena Vista, Colo.) and San Isabel Electric (Pueblo West, Colo.), and the 2.6-megawatt Carter Lake Hydro Project, which is slated to begin producing power this summer for Poudre Valley REA (Fort Collins, Colo.).
Looking at Tri-State’s own renewable portfolio, the G&T recorded the first full year of operation in 2011 for the 51-megawatt Kit Carson Windpower Project in eastern Colorado and the 30-megawatt Cimarron Solar Facility in northeastern New Mexico. Both of these generating sites, from which Tri-State holds long-term power purchase agreements, exceeded performance projections during the past year.
With the help of Tri-State board policy incentive programs offered to its member co-ops for development of local renewable energy projects, United Power (Brighton, Colo.) is the G&T’s first member system to add landfill gas generation to its growing renewable resource portfolio.
The Erie Landfill Gas to Energy Project, located about 25 miles north of Denver, celebrated the start-up of the 3.2-megawatt generating station with a ribbon cutting event earlier this month attended by local, state and U.S. government officials, as well as guests from United Power, Tri-State and other partners in this unique venture.
The landfill project is a renewable source of generation under Colorado’s Renewable Portfolio Standards. Simply put, it takes a naturally occurring byproduct of waste decomposition – methane – and gathers this gas to run a generator to produce electricity.
“Unlike some forms of renewable energy that can be intermittent in their output, the landfill gas plant is considered a baseload facility because it can produce energy on a consistent around-the-clock basis,” said Jerry Marizza, new energy program coordinator for United Power. “This makes it a very valuable resource to United Power,” he added.
The Erie Landfill Gas to Energy Project draws methane from three adjacent landfill sites. Partners in the development of the project are Waste Connections, which owns, operates and develops the landfills for methane extraction and Landfill Energy Systems, which operates the gas plant and sells the electric generation to United Power under a 10-year Purchase Power Agreement.
In addition to the board policy incentive agreements that Tri-State has inked with United Power for the landfill gas project, the G&T has also assisted the co-op in providing its expertise in connecting this generating facility to the co-op’s system and Tri-State has also included the landfill gas plant in its own system resource plan.
If all goes as planned, the Erie Landfill Gas to Energy Project is projected to eventually be built out to generate up to 4.8 megawatts – enough capacity to power half of Erie’s 6,700 homes.
Chrysler Group LLC, working in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), recently delivered six demonstration fleet Ram 1500 plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) pickup trucks to Tri-State – part of a national demonstration fleet of 140 vehicles that will be used during the next three years to evaluate customer usage, drive cycles, charging, thermal management, fuel economy, emissions and impact on the region’s electric grid.
The trucks are being deployed throughout the United States primarily as fleet vehicles for universities, municipalities and electric utilities, which were selected to evaluate an assorted array of temperature extremes, traffic cycles and diverse climates and geographies.
Tri-State is the only organization in the Rocky Mountain region — and the sole electric cooperative utility in the nation — to participate in the program. They will be utilized primarily by Tri-State’s fleet, maintenance and member services personnel. Usage will be tracked to measure battery performance and overall hybrid efficiency with the demonstration fleet of pickups. Continue reading ‘Tri-State to test PHEV Ram 1500 pickups over three years’
