Platte River Power Authority updated the Longmont Rotary concerning its 2030 sustainability goals. Javier Camacho, director of public and external affairs, strategic communications and social marketing at PRPA, shared how the energy industry is changing to meet those goals.
PRPA was established in 1973 as the utility provider for Longmont, Estes Park, Loveland and Fort Collins after the Federal Bureau of Reclamation announced it would no longer provide hydropower to the area. PRPA was formed to generate and transmit power to the four municipalities it serves, which then distributes it to its residents. In total, PRPA helps to serve over 350,000 electric meters in its service area.
When the public utility company began, it was commissioned always to make sure the energy it produced was reliable, environmentally sustainable and to remain financially sustainable, Camacho said.
PRPA began as a hydroelectric company and produced around 90 megawatts of hydropower. Over the years, water resources have dwindled which have reduced the amount of hydropower to roughly 80 MW. Camacho said PRPA expects that number to continue to decrease in the coming years. This realization plus a push to eliminate carbon sources from its portfolio has forced the utility to diversify its energy sources over the years.
Within its portfolio, PRPA now uses hydropower, coal, natural gas, wind power and solar. Currently, it uses only 43.6% of coal, a significant reduction from 2018 when 61.8% of its energy use came from coal. Wind power usage has nearly tripled since 2018 to 24.6% in 2024 from 8.2%. PRPA has also increased its use of other renewable energy sources such as solar while reducing its dependence on hydroelectric power.
In 2018, PRPA’s board became a national leader in setting an aggressive goal to eliminate carbon sources from its portfolio. After this happened, the utility decided to join a power market in April 2023 that allowed it to trade energy with other utility-generating companies and further diversify.
The decision also identified a need to upgrade PRPA’s infrastructure. PRPA identified that it could make its Rawhide I facility — a coal plant — more efficient. While the facility is still set to be retired by the end of the decade, the plant now produces energy at less than 80 MW.
Although the goal is to eliminate carbon resources by 2030, PRPA isn’t going to make it, Camacho said. Due to constraints in technology, the utility projects that it will only reach 88.4% of noncarbon resources by 2030.
“We know what we need. We know what we want but they don’t quite exist to this day,” Camacho said. “But once they do that will help us solve (the remainder of the energy need).”
Long-duration battery storage is among the technologies needed to close the gap. PRPA is committed to figuring out the problem and is experimenting with its own battery storage, Camacho said.
