Some good news today for those of us who breathe. In a move reminiscent of their
recent smokestack demolition in Minnesota, XCEL Energy has decided to retire two dirty coal power plants in Colorado, for its first utility scale solar concentrating power plant and 850 megawatts of wind power. XCEL is the fourth largest electricity company in the U.S. To date, 60% of that has been coal-fired electricity.

The power swap will take place in Colorado, where the Democratic National Convention is being held this week. Colorado is an interestingly Brown/Green energy state where the possibility of scraping up the state for oil shale vies with new green energy sources. The Danish wind giant Vestas -- which is in the incredibly fortunate position of having a $10 billion dollar backlog of wind turbine orders -- is bringing a new wind turbine building plant to the state.

Interestingly, XCEL is not a member of USCAP, the forward-thinking climate change prevention group, as is PG&E and other greener utilities and corporations. In fact, when Colorado passed its first Renewable Portfolio Standard of 10% by 2015, XCEL dragged its heels. But it discovered in the process of complying that it wasn't that difficult: the company it hit its target in 2007. Now XCEL supports the current 20% by 2020 target. The Washington Post attributes XCELs decision in part to the production tax credits (PTC) wind farms have had:

"Once Xcel executives began to come to terms with the new rules, they discovered that federal tax credits made wind power affordable."

Any new plant is going to be much more expensive to build than keeping an old one you already have on the books chugging along. So the PTC makes it affordable to build new green power plants. However, as they do every few years, these production tax credits expire at the end of this year.

Unfortunately, each time the Democrats have attempted to extend PTCs this year they haven't been successful, and the credits could fail to be renewed. With the Democrats in Colorado this week at their convention getting some media time, this would be a good time for them to publicize the good that the PTC has done.

Via SolveClimate

Photo by Flickr user Bree R