Colorado Mountain College
OP-6: Clean and Renewable Energy

n/a

CMC's Spring Valley campus became in 2023 the location of the largest photovoltaic power plant of its kind in Colorado, soon to be outsized by another. Owned by Amaresco, Inc., which built and operates the system, the array produces 4.5 MW of electricity and is integrated with a 15-MWh battery system. Amaresco sells the power (via a Power-Purchasing Agreement) to our local, member-owned electric utility Holy Cross Energy (HCE), which in turns sells some of that power to CMC to provide all the power to our campuses at Aspen, Spring Valley (Glenwood Springs) and Edwards. The plant could produce more than enough electricity for the entire college, were it not for the fact that HCE's grid connects to only three of our locations. Holy Cross CEO Bryan Hannegan, who came to HCE a few years ago from NREL, has catalyzed this rural utility into a new stage of the clean energy transition in the Central Rocky Mountains. Part of this arrangement was for CMC to hold the RECs associated with the energy being produced, so even though we don't own the power and purchase it from our utility, we do earn this credit by dint of this criteria as explained in the STARS Technical Manual: "In order to count, the institution must retain or own the rights to the renewable energy reported. Grid mix reported by a utility does not count toward the credit (grid mix may be reported in optional fields under this credit)." See here for press about this unprecedented collaboration:  https://coloradomtn.edu/cmc-news/hce-and-cmc-announce-partnership-with-ameresco-for-solar-and-battery-energy-storage-project/

Leadville and Rifle campuses both have older, 103-KW photovoltaic, grid-tied arrays. Spring Valley's much larger and more complex system (as described in our answer to the previous question) became operational in 2023.