In its on-going effort to improve efficiencies within its service territory, as well as respond to member-owner requests to secure more local generation, La Plata Electric Association headquartered in Durango is now purchasing electric power generated from Lemon Reservoir north of Durango.
Lemon’s “power” has been feeding electricity into the grid since 1990 when its owners, Florida Water Conservancy District, entered into a contract with now-defunct Colorado Ute Power (most of which was absorbed by Tri-State Generation and Transmission which supplies electricity to LPEA). Given the legal regulations at the time, Tri-State was required to purchase Lemon’s power directly when Colorado Ute was dissolved. Today those regulations have changed, allowing LPEA to buy the power directly from the reservoir.
Lemon is a 120-kilowatt generator classified as a small hydro generator. It operates year-round and produces approximately 600,000 kilowatt-hours annually. This averages out to enough energy to power nearly 860 homes within LPEA’s service territory.
“Tri-State could simply revise and renew the previous contract with Lemon, but they are sensitive to the need for local communities to have what we call a ‘distributed generation resource,’ or in other words, our own local electricity generation,” says Mark Schwantes, LPEA manager of corporate services. “Adding Lemon to our portfolio of local generation, which includes solar, wind and some additional micro-hydro, will take us to 1 megawatt of local renewable generation.”
LPEA will also purchase the Environmental Attributes (or Renewable Energy Credits – RECs) from Lemon’s hydro, assisting LPEA and Tri-State in meeting its renewable requirements for the next 10 years.