Xcel Seeks One-Year Extension to Keep Comanche Coal Unit Running as Grid Pressures Rise

By Scott Weiser | Colorado Politics

Colorado’s largest utility company has petitioned energy regulators to push back the retirement of a coal-fired, electrical generating unit located in the Southern part of the state from December 2025 to the end of 2026.

The Polis administration is backing the petition.

Comanche Unit 2 is one of three coal-fired units at the Pueblo-based Comanche Generating Station.

In its petition, Xcel Energy cites as reason an extended outage at the adjacent Unit 3, surging peak demand and supply chain hurdles.

The petition underscores admissions from both Xcel and state officials about a potential generating resource shortfall exacerbated by a failure at the Comanche Unit 3, taking it off-line for the next 11 months, and by delays in bringing new “renewable” resources online.

Xcel, joined by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission staff, the Colorado Energy Office, and the Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate, filed the petition on Nov. 10.

It seeks a variance from a 2018 commission decision that set the original shutdown date as the year-end of 2025. It also emphasizes keeping the 335-megawatt unit online to maintain grid reliability amid Colorado’s rapid energy transition, while avoiding expensive, volatile market purchases during high-demand periods, such as winter cold spells.

Jake Fogleman, policy director for the think tank Independence Institute, said the situation highlights the inadequacy of current clean energy deployments to fully meet peak loads without sufficient firm baseload capacity from coal as a near-term bridge.

Key factors driving the petition included an unplanned outage at the 750-megawatt Comanche Unit 3 — the state’s largest coal plant — starting Aug. 12. It has been offline since then and is not expected back until June 2026, stripping 415 MW of accredited capacity from the system. The cause, repair steps, and costs of the outage remain unknown, according to an Xcel spokesperson.

Xcel said that peak demand forecasts for summer 2026 have climbed steadily, from about 6,500 MW in 2022 projections to over 7,100 MW this fall, as shown in the petition’s chart tracking year-over-year updates.

Supply chain delays, tariff uncertainties, and federal policy shifts have slowed the deployment of new resources approved in the company’s 2021 Clean Energy Plan.

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