Colorado Cooperative Leverages Federal Resources to Make Rural Households More Secure

Holy Cross Energy is implementing a strategy to reach 100% renewable energy by 2030 through the deployment of distributed lithium-ion battery storage. By leveraging a $11 million USDA Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP) loan and Inflation Reduction Act direct pay tax credits, the cooperative has established the Power+ program, which provides on-bill financing for residential battery packs. This system allows the utility to perform energy arbitrage and peak shaving, reducing reliance on expensive natural-gas peaker plants while providing members with backup power during extreme weather and wildfires.

• Holy Cross Energy aims for 100% renewable energy on its power grid by 2030 and full greenhouse gas emission offsets by 2035, having already achieved 75% clean, carbon-free energy in 2024.
• The Power+ program uses a zero-percent federal loan from the USDA's Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP) to provide on-bill financing, allowing members to install battery storage with no upfront costs and repay the loan over 10 years via utility bills.
• As of January 2025, the Power+ program has financed over 800 battery packs across 200 residential locations, totaling six megawatts (MW) of capacity, surpassing initial goals of 1,000 devices and five MW.
• The cooperative utilizes 'direct pay' provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 to claim tax credits as a nonprofit. In 2023, this allowed Holy Cross Energy to offset 40% of the cost for 250 batteries (including a 10% domestic content bonus), resulting in approximately $1 million in payments that were 60% passed back to members.
• Distributed batteries enable energy arbitrage and peak shaving, which reduces the need to purchase expensive electricity from Xcel Energy's natural-gas-powered peaker plants, thereby lowering carbon emissions.

APA

Yañez-Barnuevo, M. (2025). Colorado Cooperative Leverages Federal Resources to Make Rural Households More Secure. Environmental and Energy Study Institute. https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/colorado-cooperative-leverages-federal-resources-to-make-rural-households-more-secure

Chicago

Yañez-Barnuevo, Miguel. Colorado Cooperative Leverages Federal Resources to Make Rural Households More Secure. Environmental and Energy Study Institute, 2025. https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/colorado-cooperative-leverages-federal-resources-to-make-rural-households-more-secure.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Yañez-Barnuevo |first1=Miguel |title=Colorado Cooperative Leverages Federal Resources to Make Rural Households More Secure |publisher=Environmental and Energy Study Institute |date=11 March 2025 |url=https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/colorado-cooperative-leverages-federal-resources-to-make-rural-households-more-secure |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{yaezbarnuevo2025colorado, author = {Yañez-Barnuevo, Miguel}, title = {{Colorado Cooperative Leverages Federal Resources to Make Rural Households More Secure}}, institution = {Environmental and Energy Study Institute}, year = {2025}, month = mar, url = {https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/colorado-cooperative-leverages-federal-resources-to-make-rural-households-more-secure}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }