A Wind Farm in El Paso County

On November 15th the Gazette reported approval is being sought to build a 147 turbine, 250 MW wind farm in eastern El Paso County.  Golden West Power Partners LLC is the firm building the wind farm and they have a contract with Xcel Energy to buy all the output.  No mention of Colorado Springs Utilities in the article.

It was interesting timing for me as I had just attended a status meeting of the Drake Task Force on November 6th.  If you are not familiar with this group, they are evaluating alternatives to continued operation of the coal fired power plant in downtown Colorado Springs.  Anyone who has driven on I25 through Colorado Springs is well aware of this “landmark”.  My impression is this is a serious study of alternatives and is taking a stab at placing a cost on externalities.  There is a lot of good information available at their website.  Note that preliminary results will be discussed at a December 3rd open house and final results by the end of the year.

Utility scale power generation is shifting!