Photo: The Colorado PUC commissioners in August said that the evidence was clear that reliability of electricity deliveries by Tri-State Generation and Transmission would not be endangered by closing Unit 1 of the Craig Generating Station. Photo/Allen Best
This story by Allen Best appeared on BigPivots.com on September 3, 2025. We are sharing it in three parts.
In Pueblo, with the three smokestacks of Comanche Generating Station in the distance, the Colorado State Fair on Monday wrapped up its 11-day annual schedule of carnival rides, rodeos, and rock ‘n’ roll. On Sunday night, the band Cheap Trick performed.
A few days prior, meeting virtually from their computers in Boulder, Edwards and Buena Visita, the three Colorado PUC commissioners ended their 10-month review of the latest electric resource plan by Xcel Energy. It’s a monster, if one tamed considerably from what the utility first proposed in October 2024.
Xcel had wanted to add 14,000 megawatts of new generation, with roughly 60% to 70% of that new electricity needed to serve data centers. It won’t get what it asked for. The commissioners were skeptical that the humongous growth in demand will arrive as the utility originally projected, but Xcel is still set to get 6,000 megawatts in new generation.
That, declared Eric Blank, the chair of the PUC commissioners, will “likely be the single largest resource acquisition in the history of Colorado.”
Adding this much new generation will cost $15 billion. This is investment to be made by Xcel’s 1.6 million customers in Colorado.
“To put this commitment into perspective,” Blank continued, “the total Xcel rate base in Colorado is currently roughly $12 billion by any measure. This is an enormous resource acquisition. This resource acquisition might include almost 4,000 megawatts of wind, 1,500 megawatts of solar, and 1,400 megawatts of peaking capacity (natural gas and batteries). This is all on a current system with a peak demand of roughly 7,000 megawatts.”
Construction of the QTS data center in Aurora in 2023 drew attention to what might lie ahead for Colorado, as has already occurred elsewhere in the world, most notably in an area of Virginia outside of Washington D.C. Top photo: Comanche Generating Station as seen on June 15, 2024. Photos/Allen Best
In 2022, when parameters of this case were framed, it was assigned the name “Pueblo Just Transition.” The major task then seemed to be figuring out what came next for Pueblo, in particular but also Hayden, after Xcel has closed all its coal plants in those two locations. Electricity demand had been growing, but slowly.
Xcel closed one of the three units at Comanche Generating Station in 2022 and will close a second unit this year. Combustion at the final unit, Comanche 3, is to end before the whistles celebrate the arrival of New Year’s Day 2031.
That was to be Colorado’s last coal-fired combustion, a milestone in the Centennial State’s journey to a decarbonized future.
That was then.
Now comes a report by the Pueblo County commissioners that they are trying to get President Donald Trump and his energy secretary, Chris Wright, the former CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, an oil and gas company, to keep the two remaining coal units operating at higher levels than planned and beyond scheduled retirements.
Pueblo, says the filing on Aug. 29, is getting a raw deal in the Xcel proceeding now being wrapped up by the PUC commissioners. It wants Trump to keep the coal plants burning until Pueblo truly gets a just transition.
The PUC, said Pueblo County, has not upheld its end of the agreement with Pueblo about what constitutes a just transition for coal communities.
Comanche provides very little electricity for Pueblo County. There, the dominant supply comes from Black Hills Energy. The coal units do provide $31 million annually in property taxes and relatively well-paying jobs.
Pueblo County, according to a filing with the PUC on August 29, should get a nuclear power plant… or at least a gas plant.
In 2023, Xcel Energy convened a task force along with Frances Koncilja, a former PUC commissioner who grew up in Pueblo. The task force issued a report in January 2024 that proclaimed advanced nuclear to be the answer.
“Only advanced nuclear will make Pueblo whole and put the community on a path to prosper,” it said. “A new combined cycle gas plant with carbon capture provides some jobs and taxes but does not come close to replacing Comanche 3.”
Sounds good, but advanced nuclear — an umbrella word for various nuclear technologies — remains mostly hypothetical. Nuclear power plants built in recent years have been beset by humongous cost overruns.
Carbon capture has received lots of federal money, too, but it also remains mostly hypothetical.
How about a gas plant sans carbon capture? That seems to be today’s talking point.
“The company and the grid desperately need new gas plants,” said Koncilja in her filing on behalf of Pueblo County. The county has “solar fatigue,” she declared, citing the testimony of Commissioner Zach Swearingen before the PUC. Solar projects have been contentious and the relatively few jobs the solar projects deliver are low paying.
The Colorado PUC commissioners in August said that the evidence was clear that reliability of electricity deliveries by Tri-State Generation and Transmission would not be endangered by closing unit 1 of the Craig Generating Station. Photo/Allen Best
Might Trump intercede in Colorado energy matters, ordering that the coal keeps burning in Pueblo until Xcel commissions a nuclear or gas plant?
Trump’s actions in his second term have ceased to surprise. His executive order under authority of section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act that coal plants remain operating has succeeded in limited cases.
Canary Media reported that the Trump administration last week extended two emergency orders that fossil fuel plants in Pennsylvania and Michigan continue operations. Both had been scheduled to close in May. A Grid Strategies study promoted by several national environmental groups concluded that the forced continued burning of coal could cost consumers $3 – $6 billion.
Pueblo County’s saber rattling was couched in terms of grid reliability.
How important are coal plants?
Allen Best publishes the e-journal Big Pivots, which chronicles the energy transition in Colorado and beyond.