Three renewable energy projects help us power your life
Over the past three years, GCEA has developed three new local renewable energy generation facilities. In October 2024, GCEA, in partnership with the Uncompaghre Valley Water Users Association, brought the Taylor River Hydro hydroelectric generation facility online. The Taylor River Hydro facility is a 500-kilowatt single phase turbine and generator that utilizes a portion of the river flow below the Taylor Park Dam to generate, on average, approximately 3.8 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. That’s enough electricity to power nearly 500 average GCEA-served homes each year.
Last month, GCEA completed the installation of both the Oh Be Joyful solar array in Crested Butte and the Gunnison River solar array, located just west of the City of Gunnison. The Oh Be Joyful solar array is a 1.1-megawatt fixed tilt solar array, expected to generate approximately 2.3 million kWh of electricity per year — equal to the amount of electricity consumed by nearly 300 GCEA served homes each year. The Gunnison River solar array is a 975-kilowatt fixed tilt solar array, expected to generate approximately 2 million kWh per year, equal to the amount of electricity consumed by approximately 250 average GCEA served homes each year.
Collectively, these three new local renewable generation facilities will produce approximately 6.4% of the electricity consumed by GCEA members each year. The GCEA Board of Directors voted to support each of these new facilities because many GCEA members have asked GCEA to take full advantage of the local generation allowance within GCEA’s wholesale energy contract with Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association. GCEA’s contract with Tri-State allows for up to 20% of GCEA’s energy needs to be generated locally. The GCEA board also voted to support each new facility because these new facilities have been planned for, budgeted for, and financed in ways that do not negatively affect current or future member electricity rates. In fact, “no rate impacts to members” was the foremost directive from the GCEA board in the planning of each new facility. The Taylor River Hydro facility even provides a small rate savings for members.
These local generation facilities are beneficial to GCEA’s membership because, in an era of rising electricity prices, these facilities, with known development costs and expected electricity productions, will act as a ballast against increasing future energy costs. Furthermore, if GCEA can install utility scale battery storage, a technology that is advancing rapidly and may have a cost benefit to the membership, these new generation facilities will be able to charge batteries that GCEA can then discharge to help lower the membership’s wholesale energy demand fees.
Because GCEA still has local generation capacity within its contract with Tri-State, the GCEA staff and board may consider more local generation development opportunities, if and when new opportunities may make financial sense to pursue. Separately, GCEA is also working with other Colorado electric cooperatives through Tri-State’s Bring Your Own Resource program towards the development of larger regional solar generation facilities. These will have greater economies of scale, provide an economic benefit, and greater percentage of renewable generation for GCEA’s members.
By Matt Feier Strategy Execution, Technology, and Member Experience Manager
