The nonprofit will officially launch the campaign — which urges Longmont officials to commit to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 — on Saturday.
The Saturday launch will feature speeches by state Reps. Jonathan Singer and Mike Foote as well as state Sen. Matt Jones and Longmont Councilwomen Joan Peck and Polly Christensen.
Sustainable Resilient Longmont board Chairwoman Abby Driscoll said that the local initiative was inspired by Climate Reality Leadership Corps training held in Denver in March and led by former Vice President Al Gore.
Additionally, Driscoll said, news that the Pueblo City Council committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035 also spurred SRL to urge Longmont to do the same.
The Coloradoan reported in February that the Sierra Club sponsored the Pueblo resolution and that the initiative was the result of rising energy costs.
"All kinds of cities and towns are moving in this direction and it's not just about the environment, because it also makes economic sense," Driscoll said. "When we saw that Pueblo was able to do it, we thought there is a huge, huge availability and opportunity for wind and solar energy that is being underutilized."
Longmont is one of the four cities that own the Platte River Power Authority. The other three are Fort Collins, Estes Park and Loveland.
Driscoll acknowledged that a campaign to ask Longmont to transition to 100 percent renewable energy has to include the PRPA as well.
"What we're doing is asking the city to commit to our vision of moving in the direction of the future. After that commitment is hopefully made, the hard work begins of trying to align the energy sector, the PRPA board — doing whatever it takes to get there to change the way we source our energy," Driscoll said.
Karen Dike, who is on the Sustainable Resilient Longmont board and serves on the Colorado Sierra Club Executive Committee, said that the first goal of the campaign is to educate Longmonters about renewable energy.
"It really is possible to have 100 percent renewable energy for electric generation and it's going to be economically better for us and it's also going to decrease our emissions, so I don't know why we don't do it," Dike said. "Now we're educating people so that they can ask their government to move forward with it."
John Bleem, Platte River Power Authority interim chief communications officer, said that PRPA has significantly increased wind and solar power generation over the last several years.
Bleem said that about 31 percent of PRPA's power supply to the owner municipalities is generated by wind, solar or hydroelectric power, but that everyone's definition of renewable energy differs a little bit.
"The hydro power is older, carbon-free energy and we would call that renewable, but some folks don't consider it renewable. It might be that some people only count wind and solar," he said.
PRPA brought 30 megawatts of solar power generation online in the fall of 2016 with the completion of the Rawhide Flats Solar project and Rawhide Energy Station north of Fort Collins. Those 30 MW should bring PRPA's solar generation up to about 3 percent of the municipalities' supply mix for 2017. Before, it was 0 percent, according to the Coloradoan.
Fort Collins hopes to reach 50 MW of local solar capacity by roughly 2030, the Coloradoan reported.
Bleem said that PRPA is currently conducting a study with the four cities to find out what each community wants when they say they want more renewable energy, and how much they would be willing to pay for it.
"The most recent study is ongoing now and it's a look at what each of the communities would like to see in terms of their future resource portfolio," she said. "If they would like to see more renewables, would you be willing to pay a little more for that or would you want to stay where you're at? What are your goals as a city to meet? ... In the short term, all four cities continue to move together in adding more renewables in this 'all for one and one for all' way, but at one point, they might have different interests where one wants more renewables than the other."
Dike said she believes advances in renewable energy technology will allow electric rates to stay relatively low in the future.
"Storage is possible and the grid is ready for more renewable energy. The cost is coming down ... the sun is going to continue to shine and the wind is going to continue to blow and we can have essentially free fuel to run our electric system as we move more towards electric vehicles and such. It's important that we're able to meet that need in an environmentally safe way," she said.
Bleem said that creating a system that solely relies on wind and solar is tough because of the storage issue.
"To be truly 100 percent renewable, it would be quite challenging because you have to have some sort of storage and additional infrastructure to handle intermittent wind and solar," he said, adding that while the sun may continue to shine and the wind continue to blow, neither does either all the time.
©2017 the Daily Times-Call (Longmont, Colo.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
