Xcel Vitality’s Marshall Compressor Station, in Boulder County, is the little engine that may’t. It should push pure gasoline all the way in which to Breckenridge, Grand Lake and Keystone and it’s discovering that some days it’s more durable and more durable to do.
An organization evaluation discovered that at “peak hour” gasoline demand there might be “inadequate strain on the tail ends of the pure gasoline system throughout the coldest days” resulting in unreliable and unsafe service for these mountain communities.
Now it isn’t all of the fault of the Marshall Compressor Station. The station is downstream from Xcel Vitality’s Denver and northern Colorado techniques — so development on the Entrance Vary siphons off among the gasoline and strain.
After which there’s the inhabitants development in Grand, Lake, Summit and Eagle counties — with an 8% improve in Xcel Vitality mountain clients between 2019 and 2023 — including to the strain, or reasonably the shortage thereof. The system now serves 33,500 individuals within the mountains.
A pure gasoline outage might result in a shutdown of gasoline home equipment, together with furnaces and boilers, Xcel Vitality mentioned, and re-pressurizing the system and returning it to service might take days — not a superb situation for winter within the mountains.
The answer — previously — would have been extra compressors, extra pipelines, an answer that Xcel Vitality calculated might value as much as $300 million.
Nonetheless, a 2021 state legislation requires gasoline utilities to chop their greenhouse gasoline emissions 22% by 2030, for probably the most half by promoting much less gasoline. Xcel Vitality’s Clear Warmth Plan tasks a 14% drop in gasoline gross sales between 2024 and 2028.
The danger in constructing new gasoline infrastructure as gasoline gross sales decline is that it’ll turn out to be a stranded asset and never pay for itself.
Xcel Vitality has been spending a mean of $500 million a 12 months on gasoline infrastructure, in line with Justin Brant, utility program director on the nonprofit Southwest Vitality Effectivity Venture or SWEEP.
“Investing half a billion a 12 months in gasoline infrastructure will not be suitable with the state’s greenhouse gasoline discount targets and the Clear Warmth Plan that’s going to scale back gasoline gross sales,” Brant mentioned,
However Xcel Vitality’s treatment to the mountain drawback, which was submitted in January to the Colorado Public Utilities Fee for approval, includes no new pipelines or compressors.
“We’re nonetheless digging into the main points however cautiously optimistic within the strategy,” Brant mentioned.
The Mountain Vitality Venture proposes coping with the pure gasoline pinch by shifting some demand from gasoline to electrical energy, decreasing demand by power effectivity and utilizing so-called demand administration applications to take care of peaks.
The utility has developed small tasks that look to keep away from new pipelines, similar to a $4.5 million pilot to impress about 65 primarily industrial clients alongside the Pearl Road Mall in Boulder reasonably than change a gasoline primary.
The Mountain Vitality Venture on a grander scale, The plan is “the end result of years of evolution” mentioned Stephen Martz, Xcel Vitality vice chairman of built-in planning. “It’s also the most important at-scale, non-pipeline initiative within the nation.”
Xcel Vitality’s proposed price ticket for the undertaking is $155 million.
SWEEP’s Brant, who participated in dialogue concerning the plan with the utility, mentioned, “a undertaking like that is important to slowing gasoline infrastructure spending.”
The primary half plan is a bunch of “non-pipeline various” applications. One initiative would swap some demand from pure gasoline to electrical energy, changing gasoline home equipment with electrical ones, similar to swapping gasoline furnaces for electrical warmth pumps.
“Entire constructing electrification measures are included,” the corporate mentioned in a utility fee submitting. “These measures will probably be provided over the planning interval to residential, industrial, mixture transport, and potential new clients.”
Xcel Vitality estimates this a part of the plan might increase electrical energy demand within the mountains by 8.3 megawatts, a 5% improve.
This might require a complete of $28 million in grid upgrades together with upgrades of 4 4 feeder traces, which carry energy from a substation to houses, in Leadville, two feeder upgrades in Dillon and $20 million in transformer upgrades on the Breckenridge substation.
Liquid pure gasoline “bridge” doesn’t comport with clear power targets
A second a part of the non-pipeline options intention to extend power effectivity and administration by enhancing insulation of houses and buildings and, the place obligatory, upgrading to high-efficiency gasoline home equipment.
Xcel additionally proposes beginning a requirement response program during which clients can be incentivized to scale back using gasoline throughout peak intervals and be inspired to undertake energy-saving behaviors.
The price of the non-pipeline various portfolio can be $48.7 million, with a 15% cushion, bringing complete prices to as a lot as $56 million.
Whereas Xcel Vitality has goal reductions for all of the non-pipeline applications there is no such thing as a assure they’ll get the entire reductions they should make the system work, so there are nonetheless dangers of peak demand on the present gasoline distribution system inflicting failures.
To take care of this, Xcel Vitality is proposing to put in a long-term, modular liquified pure gasoline, or LNG, facility in Breckenridge and a compressed pure gasoline facility at Keystone.
The LNG unit would include LNG storage tanks, pumps, a vaporization unit and an odorizer. “In periods of excessive demand, LNG will probably be transformed from a liquid state to a gaseous state earlier than being injected into the pure gasoline system,” the corporate mentioned.
The compressed pure gasoline unit would use a pump to scale back the strain of the gasoline from storage tanks to the suitable line strain after which inject it into the gasoline system utilized by clients. Each services will even want some extra pipes and valves to tie into the present system.
The price of the Breckenridge LNG unit can be $55.8 million and the Keystone compressed pure gasoline facility $22.8 million, making the pure gasoline part about half of the overall value of the Mountain Vitality Venture.
The installations are modular which supplies Xcel Vitality the pliability to extend or lower their measurement relying on the wants, Martz mentioned.
These pure gasoline investments are anticipated to be totally depreciated in 20 years in comparison with 72 years for a pipeline, thereby decreasing the danger of a stranded asset, the corporate mentioned in a submitting.
“We’ve been in discussions with Xcel to raised perceive what the options to increasing pure gasoline are,” Jessica Burley, Breckenridge’s sustainability and parking supervisor, mentioned. “We don’t really feel that the enlargement of pure gasoline coincides with the city’s targets.”
Breckenridge is a part of a county objective of decreasing its greenhouse gasoline emissions by 50% from 2017 ranges 2030 and has its personal renewable power mitigation plan geared toward offsetting the greenhouse gases from out of doors facilities, together with swimming pools, driveway snow-melt techniques and gasoline grills.
“We’re excited concerning the plans for helpful electrification,” Burley mentioned. “I believe they heard us on helpful electrification.”
Nonetheless, Burley mentioned “we’re involved about utilizing LNG to be the bridge … and the danger of stranded belongings.”
Burley mentioned there are discussions “on a regional degree” to resolve if mountain communities need to search to intervene in Xcel Vitality’s case earlier than the PUC in search of approval for the Mountain Vitality Venture.
“We’re nonetheless speaking to Xcel and there will probably be some degree of remark to the PUC,” Burley mentioned.
