Today, Colorado Springs-area lawmakers announced the introduction of new bipartisan legislation that would give us a three-year extension to the retirement of the coal unit at the Ray Nixon Power Plant, if passed.
This effort helps protect our customers from the rising costs of electricity while ensuring reliable power for homes and businesses in our region.
Earlier this year, lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 26-022 to grant more time to access affordable replacement power for Nixon.
The new bill, Senate Bill 26-182 represents months of hard work between our organization, the Governor’s office, the Sierra Club of Colorado and other environmental stakeholders to develop a fair but firm compromise that helps us achieve the state’s emissions reduction goals without compromising reliability and affordability.
The new bill was introduced by Sen. Marc Snyder, Senate Minority Leader Cleave Simpson, House Minority Leader Jarvis Caldwell and Rep. Amy Paschal. It creates a pathway for us to operate the coal-fired unit at our Ray Nixon Power Plant until Dec. 31, 2032.
Under current state law, we must retire this unit by the end of 2029. We cannot meet this deadline without significant reliability and rate impacts.
Replacing Nixon’s power; pursuing more renewable energy
On April 1, we entered the Southwest Power Pool's expanded Regional Transmission Organization, giving us access to renewable energy from elsewhere at substantially lower prices than if we were to acquire these resources ourselves.
The proposed three-year extension gives us time to develop the transmission resources needed to access these replacement power supplies.
This also gives us new access to transmission projects that SPP will continue to build in the west, which are expected to be completed in the early to mid-2030s.
Retiring Nixon before those projects are operational will carry some risk. We will work to mitigate this risk through market purchases and our pursuit of new renewable energy projects.
This week, we announced plans to seek bids for 300 megawatts of new electric generation from wind, solar and energy storage resources, with a target for introducing them into the system by 2030.
Planning our energy future
As part of the new proposed legislation, we would file a new clean energy plan by Dec. 31, 2026. This plan would outline a path to achieve 80% greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2033.
We are also updating the Sustainable Energy Plan, our long-term plan for the generation and delivery of electricity to the community. This proposed plan is scheduled to be presented to the Utilities Board in June.
