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March 11, 2025
Holy Cross Energy, a rural electric cooperative in Colorado, is committed to reaching 100% renewable energy on its power grid by 2030 and completely offsetting its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. In 2024, 75% of all energy purchased and generated by Holy Cross was clean, carbon-free energy. With 45,000 electric co-op members, Holy Cross Energy serves small towns in western Colorado, affluent communities in the Vail and Aspen ski resorts, and ranchers in the center of Colorado.
To achieve its goals, the co-op is investing heavily in solar and wind energy resources to replace conventional energy sources like coal and natural gas. Because these technologies are intermittent—they only run when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing—Holy Cross Energy is installing batteries to store energy for later use. These batteries are essential to helping the utility move from 75 to 100 percent renewable energy in the next five years. By initially owning and controlling the batteries they finance and install, the utility creates a web of interconnected devices that balances energy supply and demand while allowing for the increased penetration of distributed energy sources like solar energy. Batteries increase grid resilience, cut greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, reduce grid congestion, and empower communities.
To install these distributed lithium-ion battery storage devices, Holy Cross Energy had to find creative ways to reduce the upfront cost for its co-op members. While batteries cost about $10,000 (for a 5 kW capacity pack), they offer multiple grid benefits (e.g., peak shaving, demand response, and energy arbitrage—as we will see below) that utilities can use to generate savings. These savings can be passed to their customers through upfront rebates and incentives to help pay for the batteries themselves. This is precisely what the co-op is doing, and the process is fairly simple.
During midday, the distributed battery storage devices soak up and store excess renewable energy produced by Holy Cross’s grid-connected solar panels. Then, in the evening, when demand and power prices are higher, the utility releases the stored energy into its power grid. Energy prices tend to peak between 7 and 10 p.m., when the sun has set and most individuals are back home consuming electricity.
Basically, Holy Cross Energy is conducting energy arbitrage (storing electricity when prices are low and using it when prices are high) through load shifting and peak shaving. Load shifting involves moving excess renewable energy—that would otherwise be wasted—into the battery energy storage systems. Peak shaving involves extracting energy from the storage packs during peak demand hours instead of purchasing or generating expensive electricity.
By shaving the demand peak with battery-stored energy, Holy Cross reduces the need to buy power from the expensive natural-gas-powered peaker plants run by its provider, Xcel Energy, during peak demand hours. Less need for peaker plants means lower carbon emissions. A government report in 2023 found that gas-powered peaker plants emit more carbon emissions than baseload gas power plants and tend to be located next to historically disadvantaged communities.
The reduced reliance on gas-powered peaker plants also saves the co-op money, which can be used to provide upfront rebates and per-kilowatt-installed incentives to co-op members installing battery packs. Since 2021, Holy Cross Energy has provided financing and incentives to help homes and businesses install behind-the-meter distributed battery storage. The battery packs may or may not be combined with existing solar panels. Co-op members add battery storage to have a reliable source of backup power when the electricity goes out because of extreme weather or wildfires.
Battery packs installed in a home served by the Holy Cross Energy cooperative
Holy Cross Energy leveraged direct pay for nonprofits (the expansion of clean energy tax credits to nonprofits, which is also known as elective pay), a federal zero-percent loan that is part of the Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP), and an on-bill financing program (the Power+ program) to increase access to high-resilience batteries and lower its members' battery installation costs.
With the Power+ program, the co-op’s members borrow money to install battery storage devices and repay the loans over 10 years as a line item on their monthly utility bills (this is known as tariff-based
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