Dollars, Not Politics, are Driving Colorado’s Accelerated Embrace of Solar Energy

Statewide, solar power’s gradually-then-suddenly rise as a key part of overall electricity generation will add gigawatts of sunshine to the grid in the next three years, and even more by the 2030 target of reducing Colorado utility greenhouse emissions by 80%. Plummeting solar prices mean the cost of generating by the sun is now only 11% of what it was 10 years ago, and with various tax credits, significantly cheaper than building fossil fuel plants. Tri-State Generation, for example, Colorado’s second-largest utility after Xcel, has identified 1,850 megawatts of renewable power to add between 2024 and 2030, replacing high-polluting coal-fired units. More than half of that will be from large solar arrays. TriState has already contracted for the energy from 715 more megawatts of solar to go online by 2024. - Colorado Sun