The uncertain future of a proposed San Luis Valley power line is having a chilling effect on renewable-energy development in the valley, Xcel Energy said in a state Public Utilities Commission filing Tuesday.
Xcel wants the $180 million line to bring electricity from large-scale valley solar-energy projects to the Front Range.
The project, however, would run across the Trinchera Ranch and is opposed by ranch owner Louis Bacon, a hedge-fund billionaire.
“This project represents the first battle of the ‘New Energy Economy’ in Colorado,” said Brad Jones, a spokesman for Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Xcel’s partner in the line.
In its filing, Xcel said, “No independent power producer can obtain the necessary financial commitments to develop generation projects of this magnitude without the certainty that the utility will pay for the power.”
Xcel asked the administrative-law judge presiding over the power-line case to not hold a hearing Thursday to evaluate the impact of the state’s new requirement that utilities get 30 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.
Xcel said instead it will ask the PUC to reopen its 2007 resource plan for renewable energy — which sets out what kinds of renewable energy the company purchases.
“We cannot get the resources we intended to add from the San Luis Valley,” said Mark Stutz, an Xcel spokesman.
Xcel will ask the commission to re-evaluate the solar share of the plan, Stutz said.
“We will get to 30 percent in 2020 — we just don’t know how,” Stutz said.
The problem is the long procedural battle and opposition to the line — a joint project with Tri-State.
“The utilities would have been a lot further along if they had taken the time to evaluate alternatives and not make the mistakes and miscalculations uncovered in the process,” said Cody Wertz, a spokesman for Trinchera Ranch.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
