Holy Cross Energy, which supplies power to most of the Roaring Fork, Eagle and Colorado River valleys, has achieved a level of renewable power rivaled by very few other electricity providers in the United States. This year, the electric cooperative expects to have delivered more than 85% renewable power, with a goal to achieve 100% by 2030.

Holy Cross wouldn’t be the first utility in Colorado, or even in the Roaring Fork Valley, to go fully renewable. But it will be the first to achieve that benchmark at a scale larger than a small-town municipal grid. Experts say Holy Cross had some structural advantages in reaching this level of success, but that smart planning, flexibility and motivated leadership were the key. 

“I don’t think a utility serving resort communities in central Colorado is somehow strategically advantaged to be able to have a low-cost energy transition. … Give credit where it’s due: the leadership and execution,” said Kevin Brehm, a manager with the Carbon-Free Electricity Practice at the Basalt-based Rocky Mountain Institute.

Before joining Holy Cross Energy in 2018, current CEO Bryan Hannegan tested fresh renewable energy and grid-modernization technologies on an experimental electric grid at the Golden-based National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly the National Renewable Energy Laboratory). Hannegan had been working on a potential partnership with Holy Cross when its CEO retired, opening the power provider’s top position. When he joined the cooperative, Hannegan’s laboratory became the real world, meaning failure was not an option. That didn’t stifle his experimental or pioneering approach, observers say.

The cooperative’s board largely supported Hannegan’s ensuing efforts toward renewable power and a modern grid, but he had to push through some headwinds from long-time staff members who were reluctant to leave well-tuned traditional power sources behind. 

“We’ve had to bring all 175 of our employees along on the journey, many of whom were openly skeptical and outright hostile to the notion (of abandoning) traditional grid technologies,” Hannegan told reporters at a November event in Boulder.

To clean its energy mix, Holy Cross has signed agreements to purchase power from two large-scale wind and solar projects on the eastern plains, transporting those electrons to its customers using Xcel Energy’s transmission lines. The cooperative has built or signed agreements with over a dozen smaller hydro, solar, and battery storage facilities while encouraging strategically timed rooftop solar and home battery adoption among its customers. While the cooperative still owns a third of the Comanche Unit 3 coal-fired power plant in Pueblo, it no longer uses the power from that unit. The unit, which has faced frequent shutdowns for repairs, may close down in 2031 anyway, though federal officials are pushing to keep it open.

In 2025, Holy Cross has not only reached high adoption of renewable power but also kept electricity rates low (33% below the national average, according to its website), sustained reliability, and installed cutting-edge grid management systems, balancing a range of factors that can conflict with one another if not managed properly. 

Managing all those metrics meant doing more than just producing and buying renewable power, experts say. Holy Cross has shifted strategies over time to adapt its grid. For instance, Holy Cross encouraged rooftop solar power for years, but when the grid began seeing more solar power than it needed during peak sunlight hours in 2023, the cooperative pivoted. Now, Holy Cross incentivizes home batteries, which help the cooperative store excess solar power for later times. Partly through its Power+ rebate program, Holy Cross had installed 1,200 battery devices (7.5 megawatts of capacity) in its service area by the end of 2024. Holy Cross can use those distributed batteries like one big power reservoir (often called a “virtual power plant”), storing and releasing power onto the grid depending on supply and demand. 

Community Office for Resource Efficiency CEO Tara Stitzlein, who works with Roaring Fork Valley residents to make their businesses and homes more climate-friendly, said it isn’t solar or batteries themselves that define this successful strategy, but how and when they’re implemented. Now that Holy Cross’s power mix is already so clean, Stitzlein said, CORE has also shifted its focus away from incentivizing rooftop solar panels, channeling dollars into electrifying indoor heating systems and installing home batteries. 

“We were one of the first home solar rebate programs in the country, and at this point, there’s just less value in putting our dollars towards home solar compared to electrifying heating systems because the electric grid is already so clean,” Stitzlein said. 

Holy Cross staff say they have also kept the cooperative in good financial shape by balancing out revenue losses from increased electricity efficiency (which reduces power purchased) with growing electrification in homes and businesses (increasing power purchased). The cooperative has also balanced its new power sources between large-scale sources like its 150-megawatt supply from the Bronco Plains II wind facility in Kit Carson County, medium-scale local facilities like the 5-megawatt Pitkin County Solar Array in Woody Creek, and small-scale rooftop solar installations, maximizing the diverse economic benefits of those three project types. 

“I think it’s by no means a slam dunk that more wind and solar saves money. However, wind and solar have been proven to help reduce rates, especially when it’s done so through thoughtful planning processes, which it seems like Holy Cross must be undertaking,” Brehm said. 

“You need to use a mix of tools: procuring clean energy at low costs, a transmission system that works, an organized energy market that facilitates clean energy, all the way down to having a local strategy focus on energy efficiency, on using distributed resources and in smart and strategic ways, and using battery storage to lower peaks. Having a top-to-bottom strategy, which we’ve seen at Holy Cross, is an important way to get your utility to move to make big progress here.”

Aside from its vision and flexible planning, Holy Cross did have some structural advantages, experts say. For instance, being a member-owned cooperative rather than an investor-owned utility helps, Armstrong and the RMI experts argued. Because it’s a cooperative, Holy Cross’s activities are also far less heavily regulated by the state. 

“We do benefit in terms of philosophy. At the end of the day, we are trying to provide safe, reliable, affordable, and renewable power … A for-profit utility may be interested in making money before being renewable or before being affordable,” Armstrong said.

Xcel Energy, which provides wholesale power to the Roaring Fork Valley when Holy Cross’s power sources can’t deliver enough, is an investor-owned utility with a profit motive and a massive grid and fleet of power plants to look out for. Colorado’s climate goals have pushed Xcel to launch its own mission to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2030 and deliver 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050, 20 years later than Holy Cross’s goal.

Holy Cross also benefits from Colorado’s geography. In particular, the state’s eastern plains are ideal for both wind and solar power generation. And Holy Cross also deals with comparatively moderate demand growth, at roughly 1% per year, while other utilities have had to balance climate goals with massive increases in demand spurred by data centers and electrification. 

Holy Cross also has one unique characteristic that could be an advantage, or disadvantage, depending on perspective. Unlike most other power providers, Holy Cross’s energy demand peaks in winter, when ski season draws tourists to the mountains and electric heating systems are on. Holy Cross customers don’t use air conditioning as much as customers in other regions, keeping summer use mild.

Peaking in winter means Holy Cross’s power demand is highest when its solar generation is lowest (low-angle sunlight and short days dampen solar generation in the winter). That could be a weakness, but Armstrong said it opens some unique possibilities. Holy Cross is exploring agreements with summer-peaking utilities on the Front Range to share excess Holy Cross power in the summer and receive excess Front Range power in the winter, creating a win-win for both parties.

Armstrong said that concept could be critical in transitioning the last 10-15% of Holy Cross’s energy supply to renewables—potentially the hardest stretch of its path to fully clean power.

Aside from its winter peaks, this mix of good planning, leadership, and some structural benefits is replicable elsewhere, according to Sam Mardell, also a manager with the Carbon-Free Electricity program at RMI alongside Brehm.

While some utilities have boosted their renewable power mix for purely economic reasons, Mardell said Holy Cross provides a model for how to do so when climate is a power provider’s main concern. While other utilities can’t “carbon copy” Holy Cross’s moves, they can certainly use them for guidance. 

“It’s a great inspiration and playbook of sorts. There are pieces from the Holy Cross experience that can be useful across most or all utilities. It’s a good place to look and take lessons,” Mardell said.