Colorado has learned a lesson from the Texas winter storm and resulting power failure due in part to frozen wind turbines, we’re just not sure it’s the right one.
Xcel Energy now plans to lift $8 billion from ratepayer wallets to double renewables like wind and solar while eliminating coal.
In just nine years, 80% of our electricity and heat will come from renewables and 20% from natural gas.
The goal is to cut carbon emissions.
Let’s hope that goal is not achieved because of power grid failures such schemes have created in California and now Texas that lead to brownouts and blackouts.
Granted, Texas’s troubles were not solely due to frozen wind turbines that proved useless. Nearly half of their power was offline, two-thirds of which comes from natural gas, coal and nuclear plants.
The plants failed to produce due to a water shortage after water facilities froze.
From the Colorado Sun:
The initiative, unveiled Wednesday, would reduce Xcel’s carbon emissions in Colorado 85% from 2005 levels by 2030. A state law requires regulated utilities to cut carbon emissions by 80% in the next 10 years.
Interesting math. It’s unclear why Xcel is backdating their carbon emission cuts by 16 years to meet a requirement for the next decade.
Also from the Sun:
The change has also been spurred by the falling price of wind and solar generation.
And yet, it’s still going to cost $8 billion.
Lack of demand and falling prices should be a clue.