Powering up on renewable energy

Colorado has some of the greatest potential in the nation for wind and solar power, but chances are, it was coal that powered the computer you're reading this on. And chances are coal will supply that power for years to come.

Sixteen thousand coal train cars rumble into Colorado Springs every year. The 2 million tons of coal they haul goes up in smoke at the city's two power plants, sending more than twice that amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the air. Coal is getting more expensive to mine, transport and burn for power, and the costs, along with the environmental concerns, are leading to a revolution in renewable energy.

Colorado Springs Utilities for years fought proposed renewable energy requirements. Lately, though, it has begun to embrace the concept, and officials are reviewing proposals for a wind farm to be built "somewhere in Colorado." Utilities is also building a hydroelectric plant and expanding programs for customers to buy renewable energy.

But officials acknowledge renewables will not supplant Colorado Springs' reliance on coal, which provides 69.5 percent of the city's electricity.

"There are sort of physical limitations and technical limitations to the ability of existing renewables to meet all the base-load needs," said Drew Rankin, Utilities general manager of energy supply. "Yes, in general, a lot of our energy comes from coal. We do that in the most constructive way we can."

Plant plan confusing

In spring 2007, Utilities caused a stir when, despite the political climate and the fact that few new coal plants were being approved anywhere, officials advanced a plan for a new 149-megawatt coal plant to meet future energy demands.

The Western Area Power Administration requires utilities to update long-term plans every five years. Utilities officials drawing up the Electric Integrated Resource Plan foresaw an energy deficit by 2013 - the year they hoped to have the new plant built.
Members of a citizens advisory group working with Utilities on the plan were flabbergasted.

"I said, ‘This is business as usual, and it doesn't make sense in the present climate,'" said group member Jerry Unruh, a renewable energy advocate who lives in a solar-powered earthship made of recycled materials outside Colorado Springs. "Climate change is quite real and needs to be dealt with quite directly."

By that fall, planners had changed focus. With the possibilities of taxes and limitations on carbon emissions factored in, the numbers didn't look as promising. Officials say that, not the likelihood of opposition to the plant, led them to shelve the plan.

But while officials have expressed optimism that power purchasing and conservation can keep up with demand until at least 2018, the resource plan is unfinished.

At a meeting of the advisory group Sept. 17, Utilities renewable energy manager Steve Knopp said of the resource plan, "It's taken a little longer than we would have liked."

"It's taken a year longer," Unruh said.

"Right," Knopp replied.

Some say conservation is key

Former Colorado Springs City Councilman Richard Skorman was so alarmed by the prospect of new coal plants that he left his job as local representative for U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar in January to focus on stopping it from happening.

"The future for coal is very uncertain. Right now we're lucky to have cheap, easily accessible coal, but that's likely to change," Skorman said.

Skorman said he believes the need for a new plant can be eliminated through conservation, and getting residents to use less power and more efficient devices, such as compact fluorescent light bulbs. He started the Colorado Springs Conservation Corps with that goal, and plans to open a "conservation hardware" store.

"The biggest source for new energy is conservation, and it's certainly the cleanest," Skorman said.

Colorado Springs residents have curbed water use since the drought years, and families here use less water than any other city in the state, according to a report last fall from the environmental group Western Resource Advocates. Skorman said progressive rates, or increasing the price with greater use, helped cut water use, and is needed for electric consumption.

Utilities is also targeting "demand-side management," with incentives and programs to encourage customers to use less power. A consulting firm will present recommendations to Utilities in November.

Costs likely up next year

Cheap power is something Utilities touts often. The average residential monthly bill here is $120, below the Colorado average of $144 and the national average of $178.

Expect that to change next year. While final rates haven't been set, increasing coal and natural gas prices will probably raise rates 20 percent to 30 percent.

"It's a significant raise. That's why we've got to get demand-side management to help customers manage their bills and renewables in there to help offset that cost rise," Knopp said.

For the first time, wind power prices for utilities are comparable to fossil fuels. When Utilities in 2004 asked for proposals from companies to provide wind power, it got three, all deemed too pricey.

This spring, Utilities asked for proposals and received 14. Knopp said that officials are narrowing the list, and that they hope to have power coming from a privately run wind farm "somewhere in Colorado" by 2010. It will provide 10 to 100 megawatts, a small part of Utilities' 863-megawatt system. Utilities denied a Colorado Open Records Act request from The Gazette to see the proposals.

It's unclear what it would cost residents. Wind power costs 7 to 11 cents per kilowatt hour, three times what coal power costs - though coal is expected to double in the next three years. Much of the wind power would go to customers who request it, though Knopp said some will go into the regular power stream.

Officials plan a greater reliance on renewables in the future, and Utilities will meet the 10 percent required by a Colorado law passed last year through a combination of wind, its own small hydroelectric plants and the purchase of renewable energy credits.

Said Knopp, "This is our first stepping stone into the renewable foray. When we go into it next time, it will be more of a variety of resources."

Reliability still an issue

Enthusiasm for renewable energy aside, Utilities officials say it is too unreliable to remove the need for coal. Despite technological advances in storage of wind and solar power, officials say it's not yet reliable for base-load power.

"Most renewable resources are intermittent resources, so you cannot count on them for an extended period of time," Knopp said.
Coal can be counted on - and the time frame appears unlimited.

Both the Drake plant downtown and Nixon south of Colorado Springs operate at their maximum output, meaning "every new megawatt of energy delivered has to come from other sources," said Rankin, Utilities energy supply head.

There are no expansion plans, but no decommissioning plans either. Neither plant has a set life expectancy. The unreleased resource plan, Rankin said, "shows ongoing dependency on our coal units into the projected future."

Utilities officials have great hopes in research being done at the Drake plant by physicist David Neumann, who is testing a device that removes 99.7 percent of the sulfur dioxide - a cause of acid rain - and 80 percent of nitrogen oxide - a source of smog - from the plant's exhaust. Both chemicals can cause breathing problems for humans.

It's more portable and cheaper than other experimental technologies at a tenth the size and a third of the cost of competing technologies. Neumann is testing its efficiency at removing carbon dioxide.

Citizens group member Jane Ard-Smith, chairwoman of the Pikes Peak group of the Sierra Club, said she hasn't seen anything to convince her that technology will slow global warming.

She said she also hasn't seen anything to convince her Utilities is not keeping a new coal plant "at least on the books as a possibility."

"I think we are leaning in a better direction, in terms of renewable energy," Ard-Smith said. "I wouldn't say they were enthusiastically addressing things."

Utilities would not provide The Gazette a draft copy of the resource plan, officials said, because it is not yet completed.