Panel on Paying Off Xcel's Stranded Fossil Fuel Assets
Monday Evening
May 14th 2018
6:45 PM at First Presbyterian Church, 1820 15th St., Boulder.
Leslie Glustrom
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s a co-founder and board member of Clean Energy Action based here in Boulder, and has more than a decade of experience with Xcel Energy and Colorado's energy regulatory environment. She will be discussing the current situation we are facing here in Colorado in 2018.
Jacqui Patterson is the Director of the NAACP's Environment and Climate Justice program. She has worked with the U.S. Climate Action Network, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, and many other organizations on climate, gender, and racial justice, and will be discussing climate justice and equity.
Mariel Nanasi is the Executive Director of New Energy Economy in New Mexico. Her organization, New Energy Economy, recently faced a battle over stranded assets strikingly similar to the fight currently confronting Xcel ratepayers in Colorado. She will be telling us about her organization's recent successes in bringing equity to stranded asset decisions.
Clean Energy Action is dedicated to taking coal and other fossil fuel assets offline as quickly as possible in a fashion that is just, equitable, and will encourage more responsible behavior by Xcel and other utilities in the future. The legal challenges posed by stranded assets are nuanced and important to understand if we want to move forward to a clean energy future responsibly and equitably, which is why we are thrilled that Ms. Patterson and Ms. Nanasi will be joining us for an evening right here in Boulder to offer their expertise.
Our discussion is open to the public, so join us for what promises to be a fascinating evening, and bring a friend!
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The great news is Xcel Energy in Colorado has received over 50,000 MW of very low-cost wind, solar and storage bids.
The sad news is that Xcel-Colorado is currently planning on only taking about 2,000 MW of those bids-leaving over 90% of these clean energy bids behind!
With 2015, 2016 and 2017 being
the three warmest years on record and the global warming trend very likely to continue, this is not the time to drag our feet on reducing carbon emissions-especially when the solutions are ready to go and cost-effective too!
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| Source_ World Meteorological Organization |
The bids received by Xcel included almost 19,000 MW of projects involving storage, including some of the largest battery storage project proposals in the world. This means that previous constraints on integrating wind and solar onto Xcel's Colorado system no longer hold. While we don't know the new limit, it should be able to move well above 60% renewable energy on Xcel's Colorado system and save money for its customers in doing so.
Xcel's system in Colorado (with a generous 1000 MW reserve margin) is only about 7,500 MW, so with over 50,000 MW of wind, solar and storage bids, Xcel should be able to make very large progress in reducing carbon emissions from its Colorado system which is sadly now about 70% fossil fuel dependent.
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