Holy Cross Energy sourced enough renewable power in March to match its members' electricity use, but the utility still had to rely on fossil fuels to meet demand.
The Western Slope electric cooperative has a mix of solar, wind and hydropower projects that cover about 60% of its members’ needs, according to Holy Cross president and CEO Bryan Hannegan.
The remaining 40% comes from other utilities on the Western Interconnection power grid.
“We generated or bought from other utilities an equivalent amount of renewable energy to meet the total, cumulative demand of the people that we serve over the course of the month,” Hannegan said.
But Holy Cross didn’t always have enough renewable power on an hour-to-hour basis. The utility still purchased some power from other utilities, which occasionally included fossil fuels.
The achievement is nonetheless a noteworthy milestone in Holy Cross’ journey toward providing 100% renewable energy consistently by 2030.
“Our 2030 goal is more focused on that 100% every hour, every day over the course of the year. And that involves a lot more technology,” Hannegan said.
The March achievement was possible because of low demand and optimal conditions for generating solar and wind energy. Hannegan said the utility doesn't necessarily need more of those renewable projects; it needs more batteries.
“We don't really need more sun when the sun is shining brightly,” he said. “We need the sun when it's not shining.”
Meeting its goal would require a lot more grid flexibility and coordination. That “smarter grid,” as he describes it, would use artificial intelligence to do things like charge an electric vehicle with solar power when the sun’s out and pull from that vehicle’s battery when it gets cloudy.
Holy Cross is starting to explore what that could look like by incentivizing members to connect their home batteries, and even their EV batteries, to the grid.
But Hannegan is quick to add that reaching 100% might not be worth the resources required to get there.
“There are tremendous opportunities to take this increasingly clean electricity and put that into our homes and our buildings and our vehicles, in ways that make a lot more climate sense than maybe blindly seeking decarbonizing electricity from 96% to 100%,” Hannegan said.
Hannegan said Holy Cross’ imperative is to provide power safely at an affordable price. The cooperative’s climate aspirations are a goal.
“Can we do that in a way which, in particular, preserves affordability?” Hannegan asked. “We'll just have to see over the next five years.”
