Big Pivots: Holy Cross Energy takes another step toward 100% renewable energy

This falls under the heading of energy wonkiness but my impression is that it is a vital part of the energy transition in Colorado. We don’t get to 100% without technology such as this.

As usual, Holy Cross Energy is at the front of the pack in this energy innovation. The Glenwood Springs-based electrical cooperative has reached agreement with Virtual Peaker, a company that uses cloud-based distributed energy technology. The partnership will allow Holy Cross to manage 10 megawatts of energy from controllable behind-the-meter devices.

“With Virtual Peaker’s technology, we can now maximize the potential of distributed energy resources, ensuring they can effectively balance our highly renewable power supply, helping us maintain an affordable and reliable electric services for our members,” said Bryan Hannegan, the chief executive of Holy Cross, in a release from Virtual Peaker.

By leveraging Virtual Peaker technology, Holy Cross can control devices like batteries and EV chargers, expanding its distribution energy resource program and enhancing grid efficiency.

Holy Cross for several years has been working at the same intersection of supply and demand at the very local level with other firms, Power+, Tesla, and Camus.

“We aren’t doing anything significantly new other than partnering with Virtual Peaker, which brings experience and capabilities to a broad set of distributed energy resources,” said Jenna Weatherred, the vice president of member and community services at Holy Cross, in response to questions from Big Pivots.

“That experience gives us confidence to continue to move forward with more innovative programs.”

Weatherred did concede that Holy Cross seems to be out in front on this work in comparison to many other utilities. Few utilities can claim to be at 90% renewables, as was the case during October.  (It has likely fallen to a lesser number now as demand has picked up for the winter ski season).

Now, some Energy 101: The 20^th century grid system was built around centralized generation, and in Colorado it became dominated by coal-fired generation. As demand grew, more plants were built, and they tended to get bigger and bigger. As big, ultimately, as was necessary to supply peak demand, whenever that was.

Our electricity network is now becoming much more complex. We still need big – as in big wind and big solar and, for that matter, big storage, too. Plus more transmission.

But we are also getting more “distributed” or localized generation sources, which sort of brings us full circle to the beginning of electricity a century ago. Aspen was able to get city street lights, supposedly the first in the intermountain West, in the 1880s by tapping a very local resource, the rushing waters of the local creeks and rivers. My grandparents had electricity at their farm in the 1930s because of a gasoline-powered generator.

Now, we have electricity generated on rooftops and fed into Tesla wall batteries or into the batteries of cars and pickups.

We are also learning how to manage our many devices that use electricity, whether Ford F-150 Lightnings or electrical-powered dishwashers to best work with the availability of (cheap) renewable energy.

Virtual Peaker applies machine learning and real-time control in internet-enabled appliances will enable Holy Cross Energy to control devices like batteries and EV chargers to reduce demand while minimizing the impact on the customer.

Editor’s note: Allen Best is a Colorado-based journalist and former Vail-area resident who publishes an e-magazine called Big Pivots. Reach him at allen.best@comcast.net.