Electric Resource Plans / Clean Energy Plan

An Electric Resource Plan (ERP) is the process by which the electric utility selects the mix of electricity generating resources that it will acquire to serve its customers. The PUC reviews and approves these plans in order to ensure that sufficient generation will be available to meet customer needs in the future and that the utility acquires a cost-effective mix of resources. Colorado electric utilities use competitive bidding to procure resources to meet resource needs and the ERP describes in detail how the utility will evaluate the bids and proposals submitted in response to Requests for Proposals (RFP).

The ERP process includes two phases. In Phase I, the Commission reviews and may approve, or approve with modifications, the utility’s plan to acquire new utility resources. In Phase II, the Commission determines whether the utility should be granted a presumption of prudence for pursuing the acquisition of particular resources.  At the end of Phase II, the Commission issues a final decision that will approve, condition, modify, or reject the utility’s preferred cost-effective resource plan.

SB 19-236 placed a clean energy overlay on the ERP process. This is known as a Clean Energy Plan (CEP) and it must meet the following clean energy targets:

(I) By 2030, reduce the carbon dioxide emissions associated with electricity sales to the qualifying retail utility’s electricity customers by eighty percent from 2005 levels
(II) For the years 2050 and thereafter, or sooner if practicable, seek to achieve the goal of providing its customers with energy generated from one-hundred-percent clean energy resources so long as doing so is technically and economically feasible

SB19-236 also allows that if the Commission approves a CEP that achieves an emission reduction of at least 75 percent from 2005 levels, then the relevant utility is provided with a “safe harbor” from any additional emission reduction regulations that the Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) might develop for the power sector through 2030.