Jon Powers (00:02):

Welcome back to Experts Only. I’m your host, Jon Powers. I’m the co-founder of CleanCapital and served as President Obama’s chief sustainability officer. On this podcast, we explore solutions to climate change by talking to industry leaders about the intersection of energy, innovation and finance. You can get more episodes@cleancapital.com.

Scott Elias (00:29):

Welcome back to Experts Only. I’m your guest host Scott Elias. Though most folks in the industry know me as Scotty Solar, I am the Vice President of Policy and Market Development at CleanCapital, and today we are speaking with a dynamic duo from the Colorado Solar and Storage Association, Mike Krueger, president, CEO, and Ellen Zer, general Counsel. This year, Colorado passed several bills and a suite of policy changes that will expedite the deployment of distributed energy resources and helped the state meet its ambitious decarbonization targets. And today we have two guests from the front lines of Colorado’s march towards the carbon free energy future. They will help us unpack what happened during the 2024 legislative session and explore the emerging opportunities in Colorado’s clean energy economy. Mike and Alan, welcome to the show. Mike and Alan, can you start by explaining the work you and COSSA have been doing the past few years that have really brought us to this point where Colorado passed the number of clean energy reforms and provide maybe an overview of the key accomplishments during the most recent legislative session?

Mike Kruger (01:25):

Sure. Thanks for having us on, Scott. We really appreciate it. I’ve been a long time listener, huge fan of what CleanCapital does and I’m proud to count CleanCapital as a member at Colorado Solar and Storage Association or COSSA is what we go by about just about 300 business members representing about 10,000 individuals who sling panels and install batteries every day across our beautiful square state. And we represent everything from two guys in a truck doing an off grid systems to large multinational companies that do huge systems and it’s a real honor to do that. In this last legislative session, we really tackled distribution system planning as kind of a key pillar. A couple of years ago we took on decarbonizing generation and making sure that that was the first purpose of what we we’re trying to do to get to a clean energy future.

(02:13):

And then couple sessions later, we tackled transmission. How are we going to get transmission built in our state? We are vertically integrated, we’re not part of a market, so it is up to the utilities to plan and develop that transmission and it has not been a high priority for them in the past and we were making it more of a priority for them now. And then this year we tackled distribution system planning, and Ellen, my colleague, was really in the thick of it, so I’ll let her talk a little bit about what we did over there.

Ellen Kutzer (02:42):

Yeah, Scott, thanks for having me on as well. And I just echo Mike’s sentiments. I think this session was really about addressing the third pillar or the third installment of trifecta of bills that addressed, as Mike said, generation then transmission and now distribution. And so it’s really teeing Colorado up to have the infrastructure that we need to be a decarbonized future. So really happy to work on that this last session and talk with you a little bit more about what we did.

Scott Elias (03:14):

And at a high level, I think we’re going to be really talking about three different laws. So as I understand it, one of ’em is really about distribution system planning and making sure Excel’s distribution system is ready for the grid of the future. One is sort of revamping the community solar program and new dispatchable EG program. And then we’re going to talk a little bit about citing reform as well. But let’s start with this, the Modernized Energy Distribution System Act or powering up Colorado. I know you said it focuses on improving Excel’s distribution system. What does that mean? Why is that critical for the state’s energy future and what specific challenges is this law aiming to address?

Ellen Kutzer (03:54):

Well, I’m happy to kick that conversation off. I think what we’ve seen as a solar industry has been some really severe capacity constraints on the distribution system preventing us from deploying resources, and that’s not unique to our industry. We’re also seeing that same challenge as a restriction on deploying electric vehicles and to a certain extent clean heat resources as well. So it was of critical importance that we have the capacity necessary to bring those resources online. They’re absolutely critical to meeting our larger decarbonization goals. So SB two 18 or powering up Colorado was really about how do we get Excel to make advanced investments in the distribution system so we’re not experiencing the bottlenecks that we’ve seen in the past and customers and developers are able to deploy the solar and storage resources that we need and we know we’re going to be in the future.

Mike Kruger (04:54):

And this was really about utterly shifting the paradigm that’s existed, going back to bond bright of cost cause or pays. We have state level policies to decarbonize the entire economy, buildings, transportation generation, industrialization, all of that. And for the old model where the cost causer pays, we were seeing crazy outcomes. So a homeowner on a cul-de-sac for example, could be the third person in the culdesac to want to put solar on the roof, but they’d have to buy a $7,000 transformer. The first two folks got in for free because there was space on the transformer, $7,000 on top of a 20 or $25,000 investment in your home so that you can buy a multi-billion dollar monopoly utility, their asset and your neighbors who come after you will free ride. Are you kidding me? That just stopped the five or six homes around the cul-de-sac. It stopped with two, that was it.

(05:51):

No one wanted to pick up the bill for the third one. Denver has a mandate for all building owners above a certain square footage, 25,000 or 50,000. They have to decarbonize and they’re looking to do exactly what Ellen just said, sort of change their heating to one that’s electrical powered versus natural gas and they were being hit with million dollar upgrades in a depressed commercial building tenant environment. Then to be told, you have to do this and on top of that you get to buy a bunch of new infrastructure for the utility. People just were not doing it. They’re like, we’ll take the fine, we could pay this fine for 20 years and we wouldn’t be worse off than buying a new substation for the utility. So we saw this again and again and again and again and what Excel energy, so specifically this bill targets Excel energy.

(06:37):

They’re about half the load in the state and most a large number of the customers as well, but I think 2 million customers, out of 6 million folks that live in the state, what they said was, Hey, we need legislative directive to change this a hundred year old principle of the regulatory regime. We can’t proactively, in fact, we can get punished for proactively investing where for example, if they invest in that same cul-de-sac, but maybe the neighbors don’t go solar, then they know they’re going to get punished for an imprudent investment. So this was really what we were trying to address was we had to change the way in which the entire regulatory regime operated so that you didn’t have individuals or businesses bearing an unfair and undue burden to decarbonize the entire economy, which is our stake goal.

Scott Elias (07:27):

Right, and that’s so important. I mean, interconnection is not necessarily the sexiest topic, but in many ways it’s perhaps arguably the most important. I want to focus a little bit on that. You talked about obviously this is going to dramatically improve distribution system planning. You’re establishing this customer cap for distribution system upgrades for small systems. How is this going to work for other systems? Did the bill address that at all or does Community Solar for instance, or is that sort of later down the line?

Ellen Kutzer (07:55):

I think in part it’s later down the line. We wanted to deal with the acute problem of these individual homeowners being hit with these exorbitant costs that were really unfair for them to carry long-term. We are going to have a rulemaking process to talk about how we better address the cost causation principle on a moving forward basis. That will be the form in which we are going to look at some of the larger installations, commercial and industrial to a certain extent, CSG as well. So by no means have we just said, Hey, solar customers don’t have to pay anything. We’re going to have a conversation about that and it’s going to be in the next couple of years. But short term, again, it was of critical importance to be sure that individual homeowners weren’t stuck with these $7,000 or $11,000 bills for transformer

Scott Elias (08:49):

Upgrades. Totally. No, that makes a lot of sense. And this is a theme we’re seeing at CleanCapital playing out all across the country. I know Maryland’s looking at the cost causation model and they’ve created their own unique Maryland cost allocation methodology. I know obviously Massachusetts is looking at their capital improvement plans and different states are trying to figure out how to crack the code on this. So I think it’ll be interesting to follow what happens in that rulemaking down the line. I want to shift gears a little bit because from my perspective, one of the more notable elements of the Powering Up Colorado bill is that it includes this requirement for virtual power plant tariff. Can you elaborate on what that is, what this entails and how that’s supposed to benefit the integration of DERs?

Mike Kruger (09:30):

Yeah, so this is, I think a work’s still in progress and we’ve been talking with the Excel team about when we can expect a virtual power plant kind of tariff and proposal as the DOE has sent a couple of times a virtual power plants like a sandwich. There’s all flavors. There’s a couple pretty tried and true ones like peanut butter and jelly, but every now and again you get a peanut butter or banana and so you got to figure out how to do that. What we put that in there for specifically was that we were worried that the distribution system plan, which does allow Excel to earn a return on their investment, that they would just be gold plating the entire distribution system, which would lead to unfair rises in rates, and we’d had long-term concerns about costs. We hope and we expect to see that VPPs as a market force to keep the investment from Excel prudent that they don’t just go crazy because what we’d like to see is if for example, they propose a hundred million dollars substation upgrade, maybe we could put a VPP in there that would provide those same services, whether it’s voltage regulation or capacity or generation or whatever for cheaper.

(10:41):

And that would give a third party for-profit companies a chance to get in there without getting into the poles and wires, which continues to be, that’s a natural monopoly. We’re not going to get into the poles and wires, at least not in the near term, but the ability to then offer a VPP as a counterpoint to increased investment, which we definitely think we need. And we authorized in this bill a lot of immediate investment for example, but we think longer term you need to have these two forces working on getting the best outcome for the customer, whether that’s just going to be someone who’s disconnected to the grid like a normal residential or somebody who’s a prosumer who’s doing vehicle to house solar and batteries. They got the smart thermostat, the whole shebang. So that’s really what we’re hoping to do as far as what that looks like.

(11:29):

Xcel energy right now is going through a series of modeling to understand what their needs are, but we may have, at least for the first time in the state, kind of a more geographic focused VPPs rather than a broad. Many of the other states have a broad tariff, and if you do this, you do this. But given the distribution system planning is so localized down to the feeder level, there may be some calls for virtual power plant type solutions to address those very geographic needs. And I’d like to see that. I think that would be very interesting. It will save generally the rate repair a bunch of money. For example, if you have a feeder that’s overloaded, could we put a bunch of batteries on there rather than take that thing up and run new copper wire? That’s extremely expensive. New batteries, not only do they provide capacity on that line to keep it from being overloaded, but in the event of a snowstorm or a hailstorm or whatever, they’re going to provide that homeowner. That’s a business, some resilience. So those are the kind of things we expect to see. Probably won’t see that until the first quarter of 2025 in a filing, but we’re very, very excited about what that has the potential to do here to give solar and storage installers the bread and butter of kind of what CSA stands for, give them a chance to find additional revenue streams for themselves and for their customers.

Ellen Kutzer (12:47):

And if I could add onto that, Mike, I think we’ve got a unique opportunity to really look at the value proposition for virtual power plants compared to alternatives. And I think critically on Excel system, what we’re seeing is a pretty severe transmission constraint moving into the Denver metro area. So as Mike mentioned, Excel is planning to model the use of virtual power plants as potentially an alternative to what we know to be a 2.5 billion upgrade cost for transmission into the metro area. Well, VPs meet that entire need, probably not, but I think what we are seeing is they are going to be a really important piece of Colorado’s generation infrastructure on a moving forward basis. And a key part of that is going to be this tariff based program that, as Mike mentioned, is going to launch in Q1 of 2025. So a very new opportunity for our member businesses to participate to help bring value to the grid and help bring costs down.

Scott Elias (13:54):

Great. That’s awesome. It’s really exciting to see how much this is really going to hopefully improve distribution system planning and really make it easier to deploy DERs on the grid in Colorado. I want to shift gears slightly. One of the biggest challenges I see across the country is do utilities have enough staff, do commissions have enough staff to make these sort of ambitious programs or reality? And I noticed in it there’s a staffing requirement for Excel, right? The bill mandates that Excel must have adequate staff to execute these programs efficiently. Just from your perspective, how’d you get that in there? Why is this important and what steps are being taken to ensure that this requirement is actually met?

Ellen Kutzer (14:37):

Well, Scott, this is one of my favorite stories about the bill because this provision in particular was a situation where COSSA and the labor groups who were lobbying the bill, including the international of electrical workers, we’re on the same page and we don’t always see the eye to eye on issues. But on this one, we were lock, stock and barrel together running this down to the finish line. So the struggles that we’ve seen as a solar industry has been really having inadequate staffing to address interconnection requests as well as some of the program staff that have implemented the renewable programs that we’ve had to date.

(15:19):

We’ve encountered countless delays that have really come down to not having the staff necessary to process these interconnection requests. Similarly, IBEW has not had adequate hires within the utility to have those line workers who are going out and actually stringing the poles and wires that are critical for us meeting our goals. So this new staffing requirement basically has adequate staffing as a consideration that the commission will make when they’re looking at the Excel’s right to, sorry, Excel’s ability to cost recover those investments, are they investing in the staff as well as investing in the capital infrastructure. So really happy that this was included in the bill. I think it’s going to be of critical importance as we move forward.

Scott Elias (16:11):

Totally. No, totally. I mean hopefully other policymakers out there and associations are taking note of that. I think that’s one of the maybe less talked about, but really important barriers to meeting these clean energy objectives here. So I want to shift gears slightly. You guys know this, but for our listeners out there, Colorado was the first state in the nation to enable community solar, and then there’s another bill that just passes session that is revamping that program into what’s being called an inclusive community solar program, and it’s also creating a new dispatchable DG program. Can you walk me through, I guess the story of this bill? What’s changing, what’s not changing and what’s sort of the outlook for Colorado’s community solar market?

Ellen Kutzer (16:55):

Yeah, happy to kick us off again, Scott. So as you mentioned, Colorado was a nation’s leader in adopting community solar, and we’ve been proud to bring on some really great projects in the state, but I think as an early adopter, we’ve also encountered some pickups. So something I’ve alluded to in the past is we’ve had some real barriers to getting projects online. We’ve approved a tremendous amount of capacity in terms of community solar gardens that are supposed to be online and serving customers. But because of some of the interconnection problems and staffing problems that I talked about previously in the most recent renewable energy standard plan, we’re seeing somewhere between 20 and 20, 20 and 30% of projects actually coming online compared to the capacity that the commission’s approved. So it’s really becoming a pretty big barrier in terms of getting community solar launch. So I’m really excited that we have this new bill, SB 2 0 7 that is really creating a community Solar Garden 2.0 program in Colorado. I think it’s going to be better suited to meet the policy goals that we have for community solar offerings and also ensuring that community solar is helping to provide benefits to the grid as a whole.

Scott Elias (18:14):

Great. And I think obviously one of the pieces here is it’s also how are we making sure that there’s greater access of community solar to low-income communities? I noticed the bill reserves 51% of community solar gardens program for income qualified households with some of the highest guaranteed savings in the nation. Why was that requirement included and how’s that going to shape the future of community solar from your perspective?

Mike Kruger (18:38):

Yeah, I’m really excited about this inclusion since I got here six years ago. We’ve seen the community solar garden program, whipsaw between produce the lowest cost energy you could to do the best social good you can. And what’s amazing about American entrepreneurs, especially Colorado business owners, is they can do that. They just can’t do that simultaneously. And so what we’ve had this whipsaw means that we have some community solar gardens that are extremely low cost energy, but it tends to go to businesses and consumers with a low cost of acquisition. And then you’ve got a bunch of gardens which are actually a hundred percent donated. So those low income individuals who are actually seeing all of their electricity bill being paid, at least the KWH paid, right? So they kind of hit the lottery for 20 years, they’re going to have a minimus electricity bill, but eventually you could only serve a few folks and then everybody else didn’t get anything.

(19:36):

So what this bill does, and I think rightly does, is says we’re going to serve. We’re going to make it in statute very clear that we’re going to use community solar gardens as a way to serve low income Coloradans, who disproportionately live in apartments that don’t have any solar, who disproportionately live in multi-generational homes. And so you end up with less of an opportunity there and oftentimes don’t have the economic capacity to put a solar facility on their roof. So we’re going to do that, but we’re not going to go so crazy as to just give a few thousand people all the savings and everybody else gets nothing. We’re going to make sure we spread it out. We’re going to make sure that we’re providing significant savings. That was the other thing. And I will say that the low income advocates did a really good job of articulating that a 10% savings was not sufficient.

(20:23):

It actually wasn’t worth the mental energy and the administrative burden to save somebody $9 a month. So that’s where that I think that deeper savings comes from is that we want solar to have a significant impact on somebody’s electricity bill. We want them to see the fact that not only are they greening and cleaning the grid, but that it’s benefiting them as well. So we’re really excited about those and I think it provides clarity for the businesses that are listening today. It provides clarity on what we’re going, you’re not going to see every two or three years us whipsaw between, oh, actually nevermind. Just produce cheap energy. Oh, nevermind. Just try to give low income folks as much of a bill signature can we put it very clearly what we’re trying to do here? And now you can build a long-term portfolio. You can staff your team according to what you need.

(21:09):

If you’re serving Fortune 500 companies, that’s a different sales team than if you’re serving low income parts of Colorado where you need people who are bilingual, for example. So those are some of the real positives that come out of this bill, even though it looks, I think like a lot to somebody who might be working in a different market. For those of us who’ve been in Colorado where we’ve been giving away a hundred percent of the bill credit and paying somebody’s bill, this feels like something a little bit more doable that will have a much broader reach. There are unfortunately tens of thousands of Coloradans for whom 25% bill savings is going to be a difference between them having enough to feed their family or not.

Scott Elias (21:54):

Yeah. No, no, I think that’s awesome. And I think that issue is so important because I think we definitely as an industry, you need to make sure it’s not just lip service, but that we’re actually serving the communities and really making sure that we are bringing solar to communities that need it and to reduce their bills, at least for some of us, why we’re in this business, I guess I’d say to those who are listening that are in the business, I think that also means you got to check your notes and look into it because it’s not going to be the vanilla way of looking at the same sort of discounts for everyone. And I think we’re seeing upward pressure in those minimum bill discounts anyway. So I think, take a look, 51% of the capacity for income qualified subscribers and 25% minimum savings, and then potentially 30 to 50% based on what sort of ITC adders you end up getting on the topic of what developers and those in the finance community need to think about and care about. I want to shift gears to another topic, and some listeners may or may not be aware that Colorado has this unique history of accepting bids for negative wreck prices for community solar. And so Mike, I’m hoping, can you explain briefly what that is and how this is or isn’t addressed in this revamped program moving forward?

Mike Kruger (23:13):

So I don’t want to bury the lead. Negative wrecks have been outlawed just not until 2026, the original, so almost 20 years or coming up on 20 years ago, Colorado passed the first renewable energy standard in the country and the structure, no one knew how to figure that out, but the structure was the utility had to have recs, and that was the way they were going to show compliance at the time. Of course, solar was very expensive, and so you needed incentives. So the very easy construct everybody could understand was you produce me energy and recs, and I’ll give you a incentive, a positive incentive. And some of those incentives going back to 2006 are very rich.

(23:59):

Over time, solar got cheaper, and as it turns out, irony of ironies, the current chair of the Colorado Public Utility Commission, Eric Blank, his company Community Energy was the first person to bid a negative wreck. They said, we can build a solar project for less than the bill credit, so let us bid negative bricks. And so of course for anybody who knows what RES are, you are now saying that the value of a renewable energy credit, the environmental benefits were less because they were negative. You were paying the utility to take it from you were less than like a coal point, right? And so anytime I’ve talked to people about this, people’s heads exploded. But that is exactly what’s happened for many, many years, including this year. We’re currently in a renewable energy standard compliance plan through 2025. There’s a standard offer open, there’s about 200 megawatts available.

(24:48):

If folks want to jump in, you can jump in, but it does contain negative recs. So what it means is that you are giving your rec over to the utility and you are going to pay them for kilowatt hour produced. And depending on which program you’re in and who you’re serving, there’s a very significant one. If you’re serving all low income, it actually ends up being still a positive wreck over time. That money has been plowed back into the program. But it’s super weird and it certainly makes the economics of a program really tough. Goes back to that concept. I said, well, we didn’t know what community solar was going to do in our state. Is it going to produce low cost energy or is it going to produce the best societal, the most societal it could? So yes, if you continue to develop in Colorado through 2025, you’ll have to work under that paradigm.

(25:34):

But in 2026, as a solar developer, you just get the bill credit. That will be the credit that you’ll get. There’s no incentives anymore. But also you get to keep the recs. And I know for many of our larger Fortune 5,000 companies, they’re looking for that. So remember we just mentioned 51% of your garden must be low income. Well, 49% could be a larger company and they’ll be very interested in the rec offtake either for their ESG reports or you could sell on the open market. They’re not worth a ton, but they’re worth a little bit. So those are all available now starting with the implementation of the new law, but for the next couple of years, and if you buy any old projects, if everyone approaches you about buying an old project in the CleanCapital line of work that might happen, you want to do your due diligence, and yes, you literally have to pay the

Scott Elias (26:22):

Utility. But going away, music to my ears on that point of why 2026, just so I understand. And so our audience has it is effectively what’s happening is that this standard offer that Excel has will be this capacity until 2025 or so, and then this new program that we’ve been talking about so far is effectively going to be the successor to that. Is that the way the audience should think about it?

Mike Kruger (26:44):

That’s exactly how it should be. So all applause to Xcel Energy and all the utilities in the state, they’re all going to meet their state mandated renewable energy standard, and they’re actually going to meet it forever and ever. Amen. They’re not going to have any less renewables on the grid. So sort of the renewable energy standard as a construct has been superseded by events. Congratulations, solar industry, we won, but we also want to keep building these projects as there is continued need. So that’s exactly what happened. The current program for that renewable energy standard will expire at the end of 2025. Any leftover capacity will roll into that 2026, which has been laid out here by the new bill we passed this session.

Scott Elias (27:21):

Awesome. And then one last question I want to ask before we shift gears to the Dispatchable DG program is one of the things that we keep hearing in the industry, not just in Colorado, but all over is preferred sites, preferred sites, we need to develop more on preferred sites. So how does this bill prioritize projects on, so-called preferred locations, the rooftops, the brownfields, the dual use practices like Agri voltaic. Does the bill do anything to encourage more of that?

Ellen Kutzer (27:47):

Yeah, I’m happy to jump in on that question. There’s a couple of things that really contemplate preferred locations, and the first, which is probably the most important, is the legislation directs the commission to actually direct the IOUs to come up with a process to prioritize projects that are on those preferred locations over other locations. So I think that’s going to be a really important policy driver to make sure we’re seeing use of parking lots of brownfields incorporating volt X where that’s appropriate in projects. And the other incentive that the bill has is when you do have a project on a preferred location, it can be sized up to 10 megawatts instead of that five megawatt threshold for other projects. So two policy tools that I think will really work in concert to make sure that we’re bringing more and more CSG capacity online in preferred locations.

Scott Elias (28:39):

Awesome. I know that’s tremendously important, and I’m assuming that there’ll be a process laid out where they’ll propose how they’re going to prioritize it, and people will be able to get engaged through CSA and CCSA and organizations like that to figure out the details.

Ellen Kutzer (28:54):

Absolutely. And I think a large part of that may be through the rulemaking process that’ll be kicked off as part of the implementation of the CSG bill as a whole. So more to come and definitely more conversations about how that process will work,

Mike Kruger (29:06):

But if you’re interested in making sure that you’re helping to write those rules and influence that outcome, yeah, CCSA is a great partner, csa. CSA would love to chat with you about that. Well, with Alan on our team, we’re very successful at the regulatory commission. So you want to join a winning team if you want to help write those rules because pretty extensive. And they’re pretty big rewrite, and we haven’t even got into the distributed dispatchable DG part of that bill either.

Scott Elias (29:33):

And that’s actually where I want to go. So thanks for that segue. So what is this? What I’m hearing is this new Dispatchable DG program, I hear there may be a process for establishing locational value to direct deployment in optimal places, which sounds a lot like New York’s locational system relief value, but what is this program, how is it going to work and when should we expect that type of a program to be online?

Mike Kruger (29:56):

So that’s going to go back to the rulemaking as well. We fully expect that to be vetted out there. I think the New York model is probably a model we’re all looking to figure out if it makes sense. As Ellen previously mentioned, Excel had offered a $2 billion plus transmission line to bring power and capacity into the Denver area, and the commission hates them. They’ve been very clear that they think that is the option of last resort. And so I think they’re going to be very interested in this dispatchable DG process or projects that will address capacity constraints within the Denver metro area. It’s not going to be enough. I mean, there’s the amount of capacity that’s in that program compared to what Excel is saying they need. They’re saying they need over nearly a gigawatt of capacity and generation to overcome that constraint. But I think what the commission’s looking for is, Hey, can we at least be smarter about this?

(30:51):

We also have, as most of the west, we also have a capacity and resource adequacy concern. In the latter half of the decade, we’re shutting down a lot of our thermal plants and transmission lines. Even the fastest ones will not be online probably in time to serve 20 28, 29 30 when we’re seeing capacity shortfall here in what’s called the PSCO Balancing Authority. But that’s Excel’s balancing authority here in Colorado. So we suspect that will also, the Special DG program will also be used to address that shortcoming because those projects, we know they should be open probably via RFP. We are going to try to figure out how that’s going to work, but given that there’s a very much a strong locational need, we think that RFPs probably the only way that’ll work. It would be hard to write a kind of standard off of tariff, but since that can go open start as early as 20 26, 1 could imagine building a 10 megawatt project with the battery by 2028. Having that online, one cannot imagine starting a transmission project in 2026 and having it all done by 2020. It’s just not going to happen. If

Ellen Kutzer (31:56):

I could add to that, Mike, I think this is the component of the CSG bill that I’m really excited about. I think it’s really the 2.0 and the CSG 2.0 because it’s a program we haven’t seen anywhere else in the country, it’s really going to be groundbreaking, and I think it has a really unique ability to show how CSGs can add tremendous grid value based on their location to incorporate storage. And I think the other exciting thing is that it really is an opportunity, as Mike alluded to see how these resources can be deployed quite quickly even compared to utility scale resources. So really a great opportunity for the market to evolve and excited to see what kind of projects our developer community bring in response to this new offering.

Scott Elias (32:50):

Awesome. Well, this is extremely exciting, and as always with these things, there’s more work to be done to take these visions and to ’em into reality. I want to shift gears and really end with the question around what happened on renewable energy siting. I think for those of us in the industry, it’s no surprise we’re not going to meet our clean energy goals unless we deploy these projects and deploy these projects means we need to be able to cite those projects. But at the same time, I think there is a major tension in our industry around how do we strike the balance between ensuring local governments can’t derail ambitious plans to transition to a carbon-free energy sources like wind and solar, while also ensuring responsible sighting of solar. And so I know that there was a lot of talk about what may or may not happen in Colorado, and in the end, there was a bill that was passed, what’s going on on this conversation around renewable energy society in Colorado? And what did you guys just see pass?

Ellen Kutzer (33:44):

Yeah, so thanks for the question. To cut to the chase. I think the bill that was passed was SB two 12, which really represents Colorado as the first attempt to address possible conflicts between renewable energy development and primarily wildlife. And I think it’s important to note that our developer community has a really good existing track record of being good stewards and being able to avoid wildlife conflicts in the siting practices that they’re implementing today. Developers already consult with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and provide consultation information to counties as a part of the existing 10 41 process. What we haven’t done is conducted a statewide investigation to collect data from all 55 of our counties to know how the process is working today. So I do think SB two 12 will be a good first step to collect more information to understand the nature of citing projects and how that’s working today. Are there wildlife conflicts happening? Do we need to make any changes to the existing process? And are there problems with the existing county approval processes? Are we seeing arbitrary decisions by our local county government decision makers that are preventing projects from coming online? That’ll be another important data point. But I will say that we’re really proud to work with our county partners, and I think they are also doing a really good job right now. So excited to see the data come in and really talk about it from a numbers standpoint.

Scott Elias (35:22):

Awesome. Yeah, no, I think this is another incredibly important topic, and it will be interesting to step back and kind of see how the different states are approaching this. Obviously, Colorado had this model. Michigan just recently passed a really big citing reform Bill Minnesota just passed a really big exciting reform bill. Illinois has their own model. Maryland is grappling with this, and I think it will be interesting to see how the different states that are all really committed to this transition are able to crack what is one of the other key issues in making sure we’re able to have that carbon free future. So we covered a lot, but the work’s not over for you and the work’s certainly not over for COSSA and for OSA’s partners. Talk to me a little bit about, you mentioned at a high level sort of the next steps, but what does the future look like for COSSA in turning this vision and this bill into a reality?

Ellen Kutzer (36:13):

Well, I’m glad you mentioned there’s a lot of work to be done because there certainly is. And we really rely on our member partners to help us implement these laws. So the law’s only as good as the regulations that implement it. And we’ve got a tremendous amount of work to do at the Public Utilities Commission as well as other forums to make sure that these laws are going to deliver on the promises that we’ve made. So there’s, as we’ve mentioned, going to be a very big filing at the end of this year on distribution system planning. We expect it to be much more robust than previous proceedings and previous filings. So we’ll really look to our members to engage there. Tremendously excited for components of that, including a flexible interconnection process, which we haven’t seen in Colorado in the past. And as we talked about earlier, also, the virtual power plant TRF proceeding coming right on the heels of distribution system planning. So lots and lots of work to be done and lots of opportunities for our members to engage and really get in on the ground floor and help shape how these programs will roll out.

Mike Kruger (37:18):

Going into the 2025 legislative session, we have been engaged in talks around changes to the net energy metering, which is going to impact a lot of folks who are doing larger projects behind the meter as well as rooftop. Those conversations have been cordial, but we have not seen any major changes. But there is, I think, a desire to pursue legislative change because we currently have net metering in law. And so we’ll obviously be a high alert for that. Scott, I haven’t forgotten my promise to you that we’re going to make sure that Brownfield get prioritized for the deployment of dg. I think that because of the end of session, the conversations around the sighting bill that kind of fell out of that, but I think there’s some chance to really make Colorado a place where Brownfield are prioritized. It’s a very funny conversation. I have them with folks who wear red hats and are very excited about their rural Colorado.

(38:17):

And I wear folks who talk to folks who wear Birkenstocks and love their Chevy Bolt, and all of them agree that Brownfields should be the place we put solar. And as soon as you start getting into the nitty gritty about how you make that happen, either through providing incentives or lower regulations, they start freaking out. So I think we have, it’s a harder nut to crack than I ever expected because everyone agrees broadly, yes, we should do it. But that’s a thing that I think will be high on our priority list as well as looking at net energy metering and making sure that that continues to be stable for our members. So our legislative session will be maybe a little bit of a proactive approach towards smart sighting, but also I think we may be on the defensive a little bit, which is the first time that the solar industry in Colorado has been that way.

(39:03):

We’ve been very lucky to have a lot of wind at our back. And as such, we’re now evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry out here, and we have to deal with all the issues that the large industries do, and including those being who aren’t a huge fan of us coming after us at the legislature. So never a dull Noman in Colorado. We’ve got a team of six here dedicated to making sure that everybody in our membership knows it about it. And I’ll say I’m really proud of what we’ve done this year in the last six years since I arrived.

Scott Elias (39:34):

Thanks so much, Mike, and thanks so much, Alan. I mean, this has been a fascinating conversation. Really appreciate your expertise on this topic, and I think Mike’s sort of concluding thoughts. There is a good segue, and that is that Jon likes to end by challenging the audience to be fighting for the policies we care about. And I will end by reminding you all of the importance of investing in trade associations like COSSA that put in the work to make the market opportunities, you want to harness a reality. And so with that, I want to thank our guests, Mike and Ellen. I want to thank Colleen Young, our producer. I want to remind the audience that you can always go to cleancapital.com to get more episodes of experts only. So thank you so much for joining us.

Mike Kruger (40:14):

Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Scott.