This story by Allen Best appeared on BigPivots.com on November 29, 2024. We are sharing it in four parts.
How exceptional is Colorado in this big pivot underway?
As to the shining beacon on the hill that Bill Ritter talked about, is this sort of a Lake Wobegone boosterism, where all our children are above average?
Is Colorado really all that great in what we’re doing here?
Colorado has distinct advantages and attributes. In per capita income it ranks eighth among the 50 states. In educational attainment, it ranks second. (The District of Columbia actually ranks above all states in both categories). It has several major universities — Colorado, Colorado State and School of Mines — plus the National Renewable Energy Laboratory all congregated within a roughly 65-mile corridor along the northern Front Range. Amidst them in Boulder is RMI, which was spawned in the Roaring Fork Valley by Amory and Hunter Lovins as the ‘Rocky Mountain Institute’ but now has become a significant national and even international voice.
Colorado also has strong wind — fifth in nation during August — and good solar, too, to complement its older hydroelectric product. And since 2018 in particular, we’ve had progressive leadership. All around are people engaged in this massive effort to tackle climate change.
But if we were in Sacramento or Boston or even Austin would we have a sense of parochial pride?
How should Colorado’s work in this energy transition be understood in a national context?
I am reminded frequently in my interviews of many of Colorado’s nation-leading efforts, the methane detection and reduction work, its commitments to decarbonization, its ranking at No. 2 or No. 3 in the nation in sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
I have also heard about Colorado’s efforts to deliver a just transition, to not leave fossil fuel communities behind, victims of this giant technological transformation. In this, its intent stands out. The execution remains to be determined.
And then this year came the landmark legislation, the effort to push ahead distribution planning and virtual power plants in SB24-218, Modernize Energy Distribution Systems.
California typically has been seen as the nation’s front-runner on climate action, and it remains in the front tier in most reviews. But at least two of my interviews suggested Colorado is surpassing it.
I first asked Jigar Shah this question about how Colorado should be seen in the national context. That interview was during October 2023.
Shah is a sort of serial entrepreneur. He founded SunEdison in 2003. In 2009, Xcel chose SunEdison to create what was then a very large solar project, 8 megawatts, north of Alamosa. He went on to help found several other organizations. During the last few years, he has directed the Department of Energy’s loan program.
“I think in general Colorado has made fairly bold commitments” to decarbonization. He cited the work with Xcel but also singled out the work to deploy smart appliances and virtual power plants.
I pressed for more.
“I think Colorado is ahead of the curve on some of these issues and certainly behind on some of the other issues. It has the potential to lead on all of them,” he said.
But he also warned about too much button-popping pride. Illinois, he pointed out, has more emission-free energy than Colorado, owing to its nuclear plants.
“Right now we need to get on with the task of deploying at gigawatt scale. Not only does Colorado have the ability to deploy at gigawatt scale, Colorado could start exporting energy to other states. I think it’s critical for the state to start realizing that this is one of the largest economic development opportunities in front of it today.”
In ways, though, Colorado falls short. Despite the very high percentage of single-family homes in Colorado and the high percentage of sunshine days, total production ranks down the list, he said. As of August 2024, total solar production in Colorado was 10th – behind, yes, Georgia, Virginia, and New York.
Colorado needs a diversity of energy technology to achieve its emission targets. He spoke of hydrogen, carbon sequestration, and storage plus nuclear.
“I think it’s important to recognize that each technology brings with it a certain level of value, which in a diversified way helps protect you from weather events like six days without sufficient wind power or seven days in a row of cloudy weather.”
Mark Dyson, the managing director for RMI’s carbon-free electricity program, disputed that Colorado necessarily has an advantage of its renewable resources as compared to many other states. “It’s really sunny in Georgia,” he said dryly.
What sets Colorado apart, he said when I spoke to him at the Colorado Rural Electric Association conference in October, has been its leadership. He credited Xcel, the state’s largest utility, but also political leadership. He mentioned the human benefits of action that has produced tax base and some jobs in rural parts of Colorado but also the effort to ease the transition in fossil fuel communities. Those testaments of Colorado’s leadership “inspire me and make me happy to live here versus another state,” he said.
Leah Rubin Shen, a manager director for Advanced Energy United who keeps tabs on the 16 western states, ranked Colorado in the company of California and Washington and possibly Oregon. She spoke about the “creativity and ambition that we’ve seen in policies that the state has passed particularly in the last two years” in which she has been following Colorado.
Of particular note was SB24-218, the distribution planning reform authored by that brain trust of Sen. Steve Fenberg and Sen. Chris Hansen. It has been described by many in the energy sector to be the singularly most impressive law passed in the last legislative session.
“Not all states even have a distribution system planning, but Colorado already had one and then they improved it to make sure that everybody is thinking about what are the grid needs going to be in the future, especially as we electrify vehicle and buildings,” said Rubin Shen.
In this work on distributed energy resources, Colorado may be surpassing California. And in California, affordability of electricity has become an issue. (Although it might yet in Colorado. See an upcoming story in Big Pivots).
Mike Kruger, who directs Colorado Solar and Storage, also sees Colorado surging. “California has sort of relinquished their mantle on some of this,” he said. He called California’s NEM 3.0 (net metering) “an unequivocal disaster, no matter how you grade it.” California’s large scale interconnection process is extremely hard, complicated, and expensive. And then you’ve got several different regulatory bodies out there that are giving oscillating and sometimes even contradictory requirements.
Kruger said he found Illinois “really interesting,” rattling off work in distributed generation and other aspects of its transformation.
“Is it perfect? No. Are we perfect? No, but they are a leader. They’re showing how us just do it. You know, political winds be damned. And I think New York’s similar.”
Texas, too, he said. “They don’t care about political wins or really even policy. They’re just like, you want to make money, make some money, and it’s working.”
Colorado has made great strides in creating a a policy framework for decarbonization of the state’s economy, but much work remains.
In recent months I have interviewed two key Colorado legislators in depth about their work in this energy transition. Both interviews will be published in coming weeks by Big Pivots.
First was Sen. Steve Fenberg in September. I asked him whether Colorado’s role as a national or even international influencer drove him a little bit.
“Oh yeah, I think it’s the only way to rationalize what we’re doing,” he said. “Influencing regional, national and maybe international practices – you can’t always connect those dots very cleanly, but I think it is a driving motivation for a lot of us.”
In late November, I interviewed Sen. Chris Hansen. As a state representative and then state senator from 2017 through 2024, he was a sponsor of 41 energy bills that were passed and became law during his legislative career. We had been talking about one of them, which created the Colorado Energy Transmission Authority.
“Colorado is a danged good place to be whether you are participating in the energy transition or chronicling it. But as for being a shiny beacon on the hill – perhaps, although others may see us less-than-shiny and having some company on that hill.”
Hansen resisted proclaiming Colorado as the nation’s leader.
Top five? “Absolutely”, he replied. “I would list Oregon, Washington, and California. Illinois has done some great work. I think Massachusetts and New York have some really interesting pieces that we’ve looked at.”
“I think we’ve brought some very innovative ideas to this party, this 50-state experiment in democracy and this republic that we have, as Ben Franklin said, if we can keep it and you know, I think we have been national leaders, and in some cases, global leaders in energy and environmental policy. And you know, I am really proud of being a part of that.”
Hansen tends to agree with Will Toor that Colorado’s work can become a model for other states, including Kansas, where he grew up. He mentioned his legislation in 2021 that created the Colorado Electric Transmission Authority. “I’m aware of three different states that are looking at doing a transmission authority in 2025. What better tribute than or what better flattery than being copied? That gives me deep satisfaction.”
Beauty contests that some of us grew up with always ended up with a queen. In fact, all the entrants were beautiful, but there had to be a queen.
In this matter of national leadership in the energy transition, it’s probably impossible to have a singular shining beacon atop the hill, to go back to the image presented by Bill Ritter in Aspen during August. But clearly, Colorado is among the several shining beacons.
Now, can it continue to shine as brightly?
Allen Best publishes the e-journal Big Pivots, which chronicles the energy transition in Colorado and beyond.