Two Colorado electric cooperatives and the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association are in line for about $1.1 billion in grants and loans to speed the transition to renewable energy and soften the impact on rates.
Tri-State, which provides wholesale power to 41 co-ops in four states including 16 in Colorado, received the biggest award — $679 million. Brighton-based United Power, the second-largest co-op in the state, received up to $261 million in funds.
CORE Electric Cooperative, the state’s largest co-op, is set to get a $225 million award. The grants and loans are issued by the federal Rural Utilities Service.
The awards were part of $7.3 billion in financing for 16 cooperatives and generation and transmission associations serving communities in 23 states through the Empowering Rural America or New ERA program, which is part of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
“This is a big deal and transformational opportunity for Tri-State and other electric cooperatives across the country,” Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said.
The total funding for the New ERA program is $9.7 billion. There were 160 requests for more than $44 billion. Sixteen applicants, including the three from Colorado, were chosen.
“It just goes to show the pent-up demand out there,” Andrew Berke, the administrator of the Rural Utilities Service, said in a briefing on Zoom on Thursday. The service is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Berke said the New ERA program is the largest initiative the service has taken since it was created 90 years ago.
Among the projects Tri-State will use the funds for are to help finance the closing of 1,100 megawatts of coal-fired power plants in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, including two units in Craig.
The New ERA grants and loans are tied to cooperatives achieving reductions in greenhouse gasses and Tri-State says with the funding it will cut Colorado greenhouse gas emissions by 89% over 2005 levels by 2030. The state requirement for utilities is an 80% reduction.
The funding will also help the association to build or purchase 1,480 megawatts of solar and wind generation and battery storage across rural portions of Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.
Other Colorado initiatives include power purchase agreements with the Spanish Peaks solar installation, 20 miles north of Trinidad, in Las Animas County, and power purchase agreements for Western Slope solar and Eastern Plains wind. Tri-State will also build a four-hour, lithium-ion storage battery in eastern Colorado.
The association is already well on the way to shifting to a renewable generation base under an electric resource plan pending final approval by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
The award will also help fund 13 projects in Tri-State’s service areas in New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska. The federal money could leverage as much as $2 billion in new investment.
“This is the kind of money that creates real and lasting change, not just for Tri-State but for the hundreds of rural communities it serves,” said Eric Frankowski, executive director of the non-profit Western Clean Energy Campaign.
The federal funding will also help reduce the revenue required from the association’s member co-ops by $422 million over 20 years, Tri-State said.
“We serve some of the most economically disadvantaged communities in the West,” Tri-State’s Highley said. “This significantly accelerates our transition. … We build more renewables faster and when we do that the rates are lower.”
CORE is the largest co-op in the state, serving more than 375,000 residents in parts of 11 counties from west of Colorado Springs to east of Denver. It will use its funds to procure power purchase agreements for approximately 550 megawatts of wind, solar and battery storage.
“It will also allow CORE to invest in energy reliability through roughly 100 megawatts of energy storage,” Pam Feuerstein, the cooperative’s CEO, said in a statement.
United Power, which serves about 300,000 people in an area from Commerce City through Adams and Weld counties, will use the funding to offset the cost of the transition to a clean energy portfolio, including power purchase agreements for more than 760 megawatts of renewable resources.
United Power already has more than 300 megawatts of renewable energy from solar, hydropower and wind.
An additional 460 megawatts of solar generation — anticipated to be online by 2030 – includes 160 megawatts from a member’s agrivoltaics solar project. The projects will account for an estimated reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of more than 2.1 million tons annually.
“These funds are the perfect complement to the strategies United Power adopted to advance our clean energy journey,” Mark Gabriel, United’s CEO, said in a statement.
