Powering up the future
Utilities balance new energy development while continuing to focus on reliability
By Debra Melani
In Colorado, farmers are shooing Bessie from certain pastures to thwart the escape of greenhouse gases. In Wisconsin, scientists are nabbing errant carbon from a massive coal-fired power plant using a common household product. And in Minnesota, researchers are harnessing and storing power from the wind.
Those are just three examples of pioneering projects local energy suppliers have their hands in, as they work to provide affordable, reliable service and meet regulatory and renewable-energy challenges head-on.
"There's a tremendous amount of innovation coming out of Tri-State right now," said Lee Boughey, senior communications manager for the Westminster-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which has 44 member electric cooperatives in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Nebraska.
Many of the nonprofit power supplier's projects circle back to one of the industry's main challenges: managing greenhouse gases. With lawmakers' pens poised for carbon-related legislation, the industry must respond with creative options, Boughey said.
Mandates are also motivating Xcel Energy to expand its renewable-energy portfolio and advance technology to make those natural resources practical in the electric-transmission world. And, although the project has met a roadblock, Xcel and Tri-State recently teamed up to put southern Colorado on the renewable-energy map.
Piping the power
Advancing renewable energy requires transmission lines to move power. For reliability reasons, maintenance of more than 5,200 miles of lines in its territory is already a Tri-State investment priority. With the joint, $180-million Southern Colorado Transmission Improvements Project, Tri-State hopes to correct a longtime transmission problem in the San Luis Valley area.
"It's critically important to us for reliability reasons," Boughey said. "The entire valley is served through three individual lines that come out of the north in one substation." If one line goes down in this agricultural hub, no alternative exists to re-route power.
"For them to go even three days without power at the wrong time of the year could be devastating," said Mark Stutz, Xcel's senior media representative.
Xcel was eyeing the San Luis Valley area for its attractive solar-power location to help reach its mandated goal of providing 30 percent renewable energy by 2020. Joining forces and building only one line made economic and environmental sense, Stutz said. The project includes 95 miles of new double-circuit 230-kilovolt (kV) transmission line in the area.
Although the companies are going forward with hearings and applications, opposition to the project has surfaced, most notably from the owner of the Trinchera Ranch, through which a few miles of the line would pass. "Transmission is always the bugaboo in all of this," Stutz said. "It's really nice to say we're doing a renewable energy project, but the rubber hits the road when you try to build it."
The stall makes a 2013 completion date unlikely now, forcing Xcel to look elsewhere for renewable energy projects to meet its goal, Stutz said. "But this project makes a lot of sense from a lot of different perspectives, so we're hoping common sense will eventually prevail."
Meanwhile, Tri-State is pondering transmission lines to further increase the capacity of the electric system to serve growing loads and interconnect renewable energy projects in other parts of the state, including in eastern and southern Colorado, Boughey said.
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