Black Hills Corp to add up to 200 MW of renewable energy to its Southern Colorado System

Black Hills Corp's Colorado Electric utility subsidiary has submitted a proposal to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission seeking approval of a plan that would add up to 200 megawatts of new, low-cost renewable energy resources to its Southern Colorado system.

As proposed, Black Hills Energy’s Renewable Advantage plan would open a competitive solicitation process in December, seeking proposals for new, utility-scale renewable energy projects to include wind, solar and battery storage – up to 200 megawatts of energy. While the company’s Colorado electric utility has sufficient power resources to meet customers’ day-to-day electricity needs, Renewable Advantage is expected to deliver significant customer savings by supplementing existing power supplies with lower cost renewable energy resources.

Subject to commission approval, the addition of up to 200 megawatts of new renewable energy resources would result in approximately 60 percent of the utility’s Southern Colorado generation portfolio coming from carbon-free resources by 2023.

Bidders will have until Feb. 15, 2020 to submit their project proposals, which will then be reviewed by an independent evaluator overseen by the Colorado commission. Based on the outcome of the bidding process, projects would be placed into service starting in 2022.