Aspen, Vail electric co-op ‘flips’ to majority green board members

The board of directors of Holy Cross Energy (pdf), a rural electric cooperative with more than 40,000 members between Vail and Aspen, has officially “flipped” from old-school conventional-energy conservatives to a majority of progressive directors favoring a greater mix…

Electric co-ops legally need to disclose investment risks of coal-fired power

Rural electric co-ops that gamble on low-cost coal while largely keeping their member-owners in the dark about future financial risks may be playing with federal regulatory fire in the form of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, according to an attorney for the renewable-energy sector.

Ron Lehr, attorney for Interwest Energy Alliance and former chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC), said board members of rural electric co-ops need to go to great lengths to divulge to their members the potential risks of investing in coal-fired power plants with a possible federal carbon tax or cap-and-trade policy looming.

Clean-energy advocates challenge status quo electric co-op election

Despite significant strides in the renewable energy arena, Holy Cross Energy on Colorado’s Western Slope is not immune to the wave of environmental activism sweeping rural electric co-ops across the state.

IREA would be exempt from proposed state oversight of electric co-ops

One of the ironies of the controversy over proposed Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) oversight of the state’s second largest utility, Tri-State, is that the rural electric co-op arguably most in need of increased state supervision, the IREA, would be unaffected.

Eighteen of the state’s 22 rural electric co-ops (REAs) would be impacted by PUC approval of Tri-State’s integrated resource plans — annual documents that detail the utility’s energy loads — but the IREA (Intermountain Rural Electric Association) and three other co-ops don’t get their power from Tri-State.

IREA bets on coal over iffy natural-gas prices despite looming carbon tax

The volatility of natural gas prices causing a major production downturn on Colorado’s Western Slope is exactly why William Schroeder Jr. of the Intermountain Rural Electric Association says the state’s largest co-op spent $366 million on a new coal-fired power plant.