That only exacerbates what is already a terrible economic climate for coal in the state. Last month, PacifiCorp, which owns coal plants in Colorado (among other states), revealed that, according to its own analysis, 13 of its 22 coal plants are uneconomic — as in, currently losing money. An analysis commissioned by the Sierra Club showed that it would be cheaper to replace 20 of the 22 plants with wind. [...]
Meanwhile, renewable energy continues its inexorable decline in prices, and there too, Colorado is at the center of the action. Xcel Energy, the utility that provides much of Colorado’s electricity, recently announced plans to go entirely carbon-free by 2050. [...]
Whether Colorado can achieve Polis’s goal of completely decarbonizing its electricity system by 2040 is a complicated question. But if running existing coal plants is no longer economic, then maybe the place to start is shutting down the eight utility-scale coal plants that currently supply about 40 percent of the state’s electricity and replacing them with a mix of renewable energy, storage, and natural gas. [...]
To summarize: Phasing out coal in Colorado and replacing it with a mix of renewable energy, efficiency, and natural gas is cheaper than continuing to run it and can be done with no impact on power reliability. That alone means there’s no reason to keep those plants open.
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