Pitkin County’s planned ‘microgrid’ uses renewable energy to provide resilience to natural disasters

In 2018, the Lake Christine Fire came dangerously close to destroying the infrastructure that supplies power to the upper Roaring Fork Valley.

Since then, Pitkin County officials have been working on ways to ensure essential services can continue to operate during emergencies while meeting their renewable energy goals.

A key part of these plans will be located just off Animal Shelter Road, near the Airport Business Center.

So far, it doesn’t look like much: The terrain has been leveled and cleared of boulders, and the noise of cars on Highway 82 and planes taking off from the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport continues.

But this location also has its strategic advantages.

“If an event occurs that requires us to activate our microgrid, we can Just “To power those facilities, the airport, public works and the RFTA bus facility, with batteries,” said GR Fielding, Pitkin County director of construction and property.

It stands next to the future headquarters of the district energy storage facility, which will power the “microgrid” that is part of the Holy Cross Energy system, connecting all these necessary facilities.

But what is a microgrid?

“A microgrid is a system where you have generation, you have loads or users, you have storage… all within an area where you can create a microgrid, which is a smaller version of the existing grid,” Fielding explained.

Fielding said that in emergencies, the upper valley cannot always rely on power from the main grid located further down the valley.

“We may have to keep the airport operational, but we could also have some winter weather or freezing rain that would require a major response from our public works department,” he said.

Even though the county authorities have been working on generating renewable energy for some time, they do not yet have a good place to store it.

Holy Cross Energy operates a five-megawatt solar farm just a few miles from the site. Fielding said there is also a solar array on the roof of the Pitkin County Public Works building, as well as solar opportunities at the RFTA bus depot and the airport.

“This sets the stage for us to feed green energy into the grid through this battery storage,” he said. “We have some local solar generation and we’ll have some local storage.”

The site will create essential storage space for batteries in large storage containers. Fielding said having the storage space is a huge step toward meeting the county’s climate action goals.

“With a grid-tied battery, it’s possible to increase the amount of renewable energy on the grid,” Fielding said.

“It takes power when there’s excess power and releases it when there’s a need,” said Pitkin County Commissioner Greg Poschman. “It’s a win. It’s fantastic.”

County officials came up with the microgrid idea four years ago. Poschman said starting construction so soon after feasibility studies is another big step in the right direction.

“It’s not just about how do we create new technology, but how do we deploy it quickly,” he said. “If this is an emergency, we can’t wait 20 years to go through the permitting process or the bureaucracy. We have to figure out how to do it quickly.”

Poschman said the county received funding for the project from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and also has interest from those at the federal level.

Fielding says there are more large-scale renewable energy projects on the horizon.

“We need to layer some type of geothermal heating and cooling onto a project like a microgrid,” he said. “And that’s why we’re looking at that at this point.”

If construction proceeds as planned, the microgrid will be operational and storing renewable energy for Pitkin County beginning in summer 2025.