2030 Ready: Our Colorado Clean Energy Plan

We are announcing our Colorado Clean Energy Plan, “2030 Ready,” submitted to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission on May 27, 2022. Our 2030 Ready Plan serves as a roadmap to cost-effectively achieve the State of Colorado’s “80 x 30” requirement, calling for a minimum 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Incorporated within our 2030 Ready Plan are two comprehensive documents filed every four years with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, the Electric Resource Plan and the Renewable Energy Standard Compliance Plan. 

The resource planning process is grounded in our commitment to our customers and the steps necessary to provide them with safe, reliable and cost-effective energy in the near- and long-term. Through extensive analysis and modeling, we arrived at a preferred generation portfolio to meet our customers’ energy needs, while cost-effectively achieving the state’s “80 x 30” emissions reduction requirements.

Our 2030 Ready Plan proposes the addition of approximately 400 MW of new, utility-scale, clean energy resources, including wind, solar and battery storage. With these additional resources on our Southern Colorado system, we would achieve an 80% emissions reduction by 2030.

As a result of our 2030 Ready Plan, about 70% of our customers’ electricity needs will be powered by renewable energy in 2030. 

The proposed addition of 400 MW of new renewable energy resources would include wind, solar and battery storage. The final combination of resources will be determined during a competitive solicitation process directed by the Colorado PUC. 

The acquisition of new renewable energy resources will be determined during the second phase of this regulatory proceeding, after the Colorado PUC has reviewed and approved our Electric Resource Plan. We issued a request for proposals (RFP) on July 31, 2023, open to all renewable energy developers. Through a competitive solicitation process, independent evaluators will determine the most cost-effective resources to achieve our goals. 

Upon approval of a winning bid, the new renewable energy resources would be added to Black Hills Energy’s Southern Colorado system as soon as 2025 to meet the 2030 requirement.  

No. Our ability to serve our customers with 70% of their power supplied by renewable energy by 2030 is possible in large part due to the flexibility provided by the Pueblo Airport Generating Station (PAGS). The power supplied by PAGS, our modern, highly-efficient natural gas-fired generating station, is critical to this effort. Because of the intermittent nature of renewable energy-based generation – meaning, the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine – we must have a consistent source of generation available to be dispatched at all times. PAGS is the most efficient means of maintaining reliable service to our customers, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Not at all. Leadership in emissions reduction is nothing new for Black Hills Energy in Colorado – we retired our last Colorado coal plant in 2013, becoming the first electric utility fleet in the state to be coal-free. Over the past nine years, we have replaced emission-intensive coal plants with lower emission natural gas generation, wind generation, and solar generation, while maintaining system safety and reliability. Our 2030 Ready Plan is built upon years of phased-in renewable generation developments that have resulted in our energy supply being one of the cleanest in the state, powered 100 percent by natural gas and renewable energy.