A Rural Electric Cooperative Sets a 100% Renewables Target

This case study describes how the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative (KCEC) in northern New Mexico established a voluntary goal to meet 100 percent of its summer peak electricity demand with solar power by 2023.

• Kit Carson Electric Cooperative (KCEC) aims to serve all 29,000 of its customers during the summer peak with 100 percent solar power by 2023. This is a voluntary goal set by the utility itself rather than a mandate from a city or state.
• To achieve its target, KCEC is planning to add more than 30 MW of solar projects to its existing capacity of approximately 5 MW. The strategy involves deploying multiple 1 MW community-scale or distribution-scale solar arrays across its service territory, which allows for easier siting and integration without requiring major system upgrades.
• KCEC's transition was enabled by exiting a contract with its wholesale supplier, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which had previously limited local renewable generation to 5 percent of total energy until 2040. In June 2016, Guzman Renewable Energy Partners provided a $37 million exit fee to buy KCEC out of this contract, a cost the cooperative is recovering via an electricity surcharge.
• The cooperative expects that using a portfolio of standardized community-scale projects will lower costs. KCEC believes it can achieve solar prices as low as 4.5 cents/kWh, which is comparable to the rates it paid under its previous Tri-State contract. Additionally, KCEC is exploring storage technologies to transform solar from an intermittent resource into a firm resource.
• Beyond sustainability, KCEC views the solar transition as an economic strategy to provide rate certainty for 20 years, attract businesses valuing green energy, and create local labor and construction jobs.

APA

RMI (2016). A Rural Electric Cooperative Sets a 100% Renewables Target. https://rmi.org/resources/rural-electric-cooperative-sets-100-renewables-target/

Chicago

RMI. A Rural Electric Cooperative Sets a 100% Renewables Target. 2016. https://rmi.org/resources/rural-electric-cooperative-sets-100-renewables-target/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=A Rural Electric Cooperative Sets a 100% Renewables Target |date=19 December 2016 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/rural-electric-cooperative-sets-100-renewables-target/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2016rural, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{A Rural Electric Cooperative Sets a 100\% Renewables Target}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2016}, month = dec, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/rural-electric-cooperative-sets-100-renewables-target/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }