Colorado, USA, 13 November 2007.
A new study concludes that the state of Colorado will need to build a
significant number of power plants in the next 18 years - in addition to
aggressively building new renewable energy facilities and increasing energy
conservation efforts - just in order to meet the state's anticipated growth
in demand for electricity.
The study, by the Colorado Energy Forum (CEF), a non-profit, non-partisan
think tank, concluded that even if Colorado fully meets the requirements of
the new Renewable Energy Standard (RES) law passed by the Colorado
Legislature earlier this year, the state will still need to build additional
generation capacity or conserve energy to satisfy the need for an additional
3 700 to 4 500 megawatts of power.
Under RES law Colorado's investor-owned utilities are required to obtain 20%
of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2020.
Large municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives must achieve a
renewable energy goal of 10% by 2020. The CEF analysis estimated that more
than 3 300 MW of wind generation and nearly 200 MW of solar generation must
be deployed in order to meet Colorado's RES. However, after taking into
account the intermittent nature of wind and solar resources, a gap in needed
power supplies of between 3 700 and 4 500 megawatts still exists.
These graphs show the impact of the high renewable capacity scenario on
Colorado's resource need;
The top (red) lines of both graphs show the 4 900 MW that Colorado
will need by 2025. The lower (yellow) line on the left graph shows that
renewable resources contribute over 1 100 MW by 2025 under the high capacity
credit case. The right graph shows that renewable resources contribute over
300 MW by 2025 under the low capacity credit case. In both cases the gap
must be met with additional resources such as energy efficiency, more
renewables, emerging generation technologies and conventional generating
resources.
The CEF took 'no position' on how new resource needs should be met but
believes it is important to understand the effects of the RES in the context
of the state's overall future electricity requirements.
According to Bruce Smith, Executive Director of the CEF, "This is a
realistic assessment of what will be required in Colorado in order to
maintain the reliability of our electric system. In other words, this is
what we have to do in order to 'keep the lights on' as we move toward an
agressive build-out of our abundant renewable energy resources. We are also
going to have to build hundreds of miles of new transmission lines in order
to maintain system reliability."
Smith also pointed out that "Higher electricity rates could make the
Colorado economy less competitive, and if the state's utilities are not able
to meet the expected growth in future demand, reliability will be decreased,
with a huge financial cost to Colorado."
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