Is natural gas a bridge to clean energy or a climate backslide? That’s a Colorado power company’s dilemma. 

The Platte River Power Authority, which supplies electricity to more than 350,000 people in four northern Colorado cities, has been on both sides of the carbon-neutral coin.

In 2018, the authority was cheered by environmental groups for presenting an ambitious emissions goal of 100% carbon-free generation by 2030, ahead of the statewide target to cut 80% of fossil fuels by the same year.

A few years later, the company was harangued by many of those same environmentalists for incorporating gas-powered equipment into their roadmap for going carbon free.

On Monday, the power company met with Larimer County commissioners to clear one of the final hurdles between them and five gas-powered turbines, what they are calling a “bridge technology” to help the company transition away from their coal-fired plant to a carbon-free future.

The question in front of the commissioners is whether Platte River Power Authority should be granted a land-use permit to install the new turbines at their Rawhide Energy Station north of Fort Collins, near Wellington.

Environmental groups and elected officials said buying the new turbines is a big step back from PRPA’s carbon reduction goals, and alleged the company intentionally slashed the estimated capacity of its renewable sources in order to justify purchasing the new turbines.

“They made up their mind from the beginning that they would need a new gas plant,” Barbara Krupnik-Goldman, from the environmental advocacy group 350 Colorado, told commissioners during public comment. “We know the assumptions that go into an analysis will play a big role in the results that you get. In this case, Platte River used assumptions that were virtually guaranteed to get them to the spot of recommending a big new gas plant, and guess what, that’s what they’re doing.”

After a lengthy public comment period and question-and-answer session Monday night, the Larimer County commissioners decided that, well, they aren’t quite ready to decide. The permitting session was extended until March 24.

The brave, new, carbon-free world

Platte River Power Authority is owned by the cities it distributes energy to in Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland and Estes Park. The company’s Rawhide station provides energy to customers in, through a mix of energy sources that shift minute by minute.

The company’s largest source — the coal-fired Rawhide Unit 1, which provides 280 megawatts of power — is scheduled to shut down at the end of 2029. The rest of the power is supplied through a mix of on-site solar, wind and natural gas units, a hydropower plant in Loveland, and two coal-fired units in Craig that PRPA is a part owner of. One of the Craig stations is scheduled to close this year, and the other will close in 2028. A chart that shows the mix of energy customers receive over a 24-hour period is updated every 15 minutes on the power authority’s homepage.

In order to hit the statewide target of 80% reduced emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, the company must replace natural gas and coal sources with renewable energy sources.

This changeover has created the potential for power gaps, as solar and wind can be intermittent sources, and long-term energy storage is still too costly for the company.

Their solution is to add five aeroderivative gas turbines, which are more responsive to power changes than the company’s five existing, older turbines. The new turbines are meant to stabilize the grid during times of spotty power. The turbines act as “shock absorbers,” according to Jason Frisbie, CEO of Platte River Power Authority.

The power authority insisted that they’ve been transparent with their progress and their process, and that the turbines are necessary to address reliability issues when the renewables aren’t sufficient, like during extreme weather events or sustained “dark calms,” periods with little sun and wind.

“Going into this brave new world where we’ve never been before, in a market where we’ve never been, we want as many levers as we can to manage this system,” Frisbie said.

The NREL report

Ahead of Monday’s meeting, state Reps. Andrew Boesenecker and Yara Zokaie, along with state Sen. Cathy Kipp, all Fort Collins Democrats, sent a letter to county commissioners urging them to reject the permit until the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or NREL, has looked over the plans.

Getting an independent analysis by NREL has been one of the environmental groups’ main requests over the past six months, according to Kevin Cross of the Fort Collins Sustainability Group.

When the power authority released its 2024 Integrated Resource Plan, a report filed every other year, Cross said that the environmental groups, including Northern Colorado Partners for Clean Energy and Fort Collins Sustainability Group, were “not completely satisfied, to put it mildly.”

“Larimer County land-use code requires the applicant to first avoid environmental impacts, then minimize them, then mitigate them,” Cross told The Colorado Sun. “So, on the ‘avoid’ piece, we think an NREL review could well show that they don’t need to build any capacity.”

The company’s Integrated Resource Plan analyzes five scenarios to meet growing power demand while decreasing the reliance on carbon over 19 years, from 2024-2043.

The scenarios add 600-800 MW of renewable energy to account for growing populations, building electrification and electric vehicle charging stations. Four of the five scenarios introduce new gas units to offset the renewables, ranging from 80-240 MW over the next four years to up to 280 MW by 2043.

The company chose to pursue the portfolio that introduces 200 MW of gas power, the second most carbon intensive of the plans.

Their analysis shows an inverse relationship between cost and carbon efficiency, with the lowest-emitting plans also imposing the highest costs, as well as a greater reliance on four-hour battery storage.

A middle path suggests that 160 MW of gas turbine generation could be sufficient, but “may not be reliable if weather events continue to become more extreme as they have in the recent past,” the report concludes.

Cross pointed to the 160 MW portfolio as evidence that the company has not been diligent with their commitments to first avoid, and then minimize, environmental impacts.

The company argued that they need to act conservatively with power estimates as they decarbonize, Frisbie, the CEO, told the commissioners.

The NREL study, he said, wasn’t understood to be part of the process when the gas turbines were introduced in previous reports, including in 2020 and 2022.

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“The city councils didn’t see it as necessary, the board didn’t see it as necessary, so we didn’t pursue it. I never dreamed it would be used against us like we were trying to hide something,” he said.

The company has placed an initial deposit on the turbines to “hold their place in line,” a company spokesperson said, but declined an interview to answer further questions until the permit matter is settled. 

If the commissioners approve the land-use permit March 24, the project will undergo a technical review to make sure all permit conditions have been met. The technical review is not subject to public hearing and no public notice is required. 

The authority will also be required to comply with Colorado’s air quality regulations permitting with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.