Seeking to fill a gap in Colorado’s power planning, the former director of the state Public Utilities Commission has created a nonprofit research group to determine statewide electrical needs for the next 20 years.
Bruce Smith, who retired last year after heading the PUC for 13 years, said the Colorado Energy Forum will sponsor an independent and detailed study of power needs that will be shared among all of the state’s electrical utilities.
“Everyone recognizes that Colorado’s energy demands are growing at an incredible rate,” Smith said. “That’s the easy part. But we lack independent, verifiable data to tell us exactly what our short- and long-term needs really are on a statewide aggregate basis. Those facts are absolutely key to Colorado’s electric-energy future.”
Smith’s group has commissioned engineering firm R.W. Beck Inc. and the Colorado School of Mines to produce the study. It will calculate generation and transmission needs, identify impediments to making needed investments and show the importance of adequate and affordable electrical infrastructure for the state’s residents and businesses.
Most utilities in Colorado conduct their own internal planning studies, and some of the largest, including Xcel Energy, the Tri- State Generation and Transmission Association and Aquila Energy, submit the reports for review to the PUC.
But neither the PUC nor any other agency has a mechanism for looking comprehensively at statewide power requirements and how individual utilities’ requirements mesh.
Smith said every power-generating entity in Colorado has agreed to participate in and help fund the study.
He declined to disclose the cost of the study or the operating budget for the Colorado Energy Forum. Smith has hired Gary Schmitz, former chief economist of the PUC, to work for the forum.
Consumers can be hurt by inadequate long-term power planning, Smith said, because utilities that fail to generate enough of their own electricity must purchase more-expensive power from independent producers.
“All of the state’s utilities have resource needs going forward,” said Mac McLennan, a Tri-State Generation executive who will serve as the energy forum’s board chairman. “This will give utilities, for the first time, an opportunity to sit down together and determine what infrastructure needs we have in a collective fashion.”
Staff writer Steve Raabe can be reached at sraabe@denverpost.com or 303-820-1948.
