How can Holy Cross Energy possibly leap this high?

Let’s start with the obvious. e sun doesn’t always shine and, except for springtime in Colorado, the wind doesn’t always blow.

So how can Holy Cross Energy, which serves the Vail, Aspen, and Ri e areas, achieve 92% emissionfree energy in 2024? Last year it was 50%.

And if Holy Cross can do it, what is possible for utilities serving Crested Butte and Steamboat Springs, Holyoke and Crestone, Sterling and Pueblo?

By the way, Holy Cross still owns 8% of Colorado’s newest coal plant, Comanche 3.

Directors of Holy Cross several

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BIG PIVOTS a major question in this energy transition. Coal plants, if sometimes down, are far more reliable than wind and sunshine. Now we’re hurriedly closing those high-priced and polluting plants. Natural gas can respond quickly to demand. However, those plants are costly and pollute, too.

Do we need more natural gas plants?

Allen Best years ago adopted what seemed like the audacious goal of achieving 100% emissions-free power by 2030. Municipal utilities serving Aspen and Glenwood springs already have 100% renewables, but do not own their own generation. I expected small steps. Wind and solar have become far less expensive than coal or gas. But what about windless, sunless days?

Resource adequacy has become

LINDA SHAPLEY Publisher lshapley@coloradocommunitymedia.com

MICHAEL DE YOANNA Editor-in-Chief michael@coloradocommunitymedia.com

SCOTT TAYLOR Metro North Editor staylor@coloradocommunitymedia.com

BELEN WARD Community Editor bward@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Colorado’s two largest electrical providers, Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission, both say they can reduce carbon emissions 80% carbon by 2030 as compared to 2005 levels. But both have refrained from embracing higher, short-term goals.

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Tri-State, which delivers power to 17 of the state’s 22 electrical cooperatives, warns of ambitions outpacing realities. Duane Highley, the chief executive, likens resource adequacy to a “big bad wolf.” e Western Energy Coordinating Council in December warned that Western states risked having insu cient resources by 2025 to meet electric demand on the grid they share.

Storage will be crucial. Lithiumion batteries, if increasingly more a ordable, can store electricity for just a few hours. We need technologies that can store energy for days if not weeks. Xcel Energy will be

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