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Colorado is pushing hard to quickly approve a massive amount of renewable energy while the projects are still eligible for federal incentives. The Republican tax and spending law that passed this summer drastically shortened the timeline for wind and solar projects to qualify for federal tax credits. Under the 2022…

Colorado goes big on clean energy before tax credits vanish
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Colorado goes big on clean energy before tax credits vanish

States are under pressure to expedite wind and solar projects beforeGOPpolicies make them more expensive. Colorado is leading theway.

ByJulian Spector
4 September 2025

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The 13-megawatt Fort Lupton Solar Farm in Colorado (Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Colorado is pushing hard to quickly approve amassive amount of renewable energy while the projects are still eligible for federal incentives.
The Republican tax and spending law that passed this summer drastically shortened the timeline for wind and solar projects to qualify for federal tax credits. Under the2022Inflation Reduction Act, developers had until at least2033to start construction; now they must begin before July4of2026, or meet the abrupt deadline of commencing operations by the end of2027.
This sudden change puts states in atight spot: If wind or solar projects can’t get started within ayear, they’ll be considerably more expensive. And power demand andutility billsare already rising nationwide.
All of these factors are putting pressure on state energy regulators, who typically move at an exceedingly deliberative pace, which is to say, very slowly. The usual months of back and forth and obscure bureaucratic wrangling could force customers to pay billions of dollars more, based on the new deadlines from the Republican majority in Congress.
In recent weeks, Colorado became one of the first states to try getting ahead of that damaging outcome, creating aplaybookothers could learn from. Gov. Jared Polis, aDemocrat, kicked off the effort with an Aug.1letterurging state authorities to“eliminate administrative barriers and bottlenecks for renewable projects.” Polis, who campaigned on astrong clean energy platform, identified the immense financial stakes of the moment.
“Getting this right is of critical importance to Colorado ratepayers; by maximizing the utilization of tax credits while they’re available and reducing future tariff uncertainty, the State can avoid billions of dollars in additional energy costs for decades to come,” hewrote.
Taking up that call, key players in the Colorado energy establishmentfiled an official requestwith the state’s Public Utilities Commission on Aug.22to speed up decision-making for a“near-term procurement.” This effort would enable final approvals before mid-2026for4gigawatts of renewables (which could include batteries),200megawatts of thermal power (like gas), and300megawatts that could be gas or energy storage. That’s aconsiderable amount for the state, which currently has around5gigawatts of windand4.5gigawatts of solarinstalled.
On Aug.27, the utilities commission approved an expedited timeline to decide on the joint proposal. Prospects seem favorable for its passage in the coming days, as it was put forward by the commission’s own staff, the Colorado Energy Office, the Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate, and the state’s largest utility, Xcel Energy.
Delivering on the faster schedule could save Xcel’s Colorado customers $5billion over20years, said Michelle Aguayo, aspokesperson for the utility.
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For several years running, solar, wind, and batteries have accounted forover90% of new additionsto the U.S. power grid. New turbines for gas-fired plantsare more or less sold outuntil2030. And all around the country, electricity demand isrising fasterthan it has in decades. For those reasons, experts still expect lots of renewable energy to be built even once subsidies expire.
But expediting projects now is still worthwhile. Federal tax credits can cut project costs by more than30% —afact that’s helping forge some unlikely coalitions.
“We are seeing, in states like Colorado, acoming-together of forces to try to execute on taking advantage of these incentives as quickly as possible,” said Sam Ricketts, alongtime climate policy advocate who recently cofoundedS2Strategies, aclean energy advisory firm.“Many of [these projects] are going to get built. It’s amatter of when: Will it be lower cost or higher cost?”
Indeed, it’s rare to find enthusiastic agreement between amonopoly utility and aratepayer advocate, whose job is to contest utility spending that could raise bills for customers. In this case, the clear threat ofhigher energy pricesfrom Trump administration policies has created an unusual alignment of interests. Ricketts refers to this catalyst as“the fierce urgency of commence construction,” the technical term for when developers can lock in the favorable tax credit rates.
Speeding up regulatory approvals is valuable on anumber of levels. The typical pace of states’ energy infrastructure deliberations has been out of step both with the urgency of the climate crisis and the more recent spike in electricity demand. Faster approvals of cheap clean energy projects could push down prices compared to further reliance on expensive, aging coal and gas plants. But the exigencies of climate change, demand growth, or customer wellbeing haven’t prompted the kind of speed-up that Trump’s reworking of federal energy policy achieved.
That said, the acceleration will be limited in its scope. States will have to allocate time and effort to salvage just some of the energy benefits that had been promised for adecade to come. Aguayo, from Xcel, described this as a“one-time process in response to the current policy environment,” not along-term change to the state’s“robust competitive resource planning process.”
Other states can learn from Polis’ timely response to the about-face in Washington. And, indeed, some are already taking action of their own. Mainefast-tracked its renewable procurementafew weeks after President Donald Trump signed his signature policy bill. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, aDemocrat,signed an executive orderAug.29directing state agencies to do what they can to help clean energy projects meet the new federal deadlines.
As it stands, though, the list of states taking prompt action pales in comparison to those facing cost hikes on their wind and solar projects, which is to say, all50. Eventually, state leaders across the country will have to grapple with adire outlook: Trump came to office declaring an energy emergency, and then took one action after another toreduce the supply and raise the costof American electricity production.
“Clean energy really is the lowest-cost, fastest to deploy resource now,” Ricketts noted.“We need more generation, and everyone knows it. …[But] the federal government is doing all it can to go in the wrong direction.”
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Julian Spectoris a senior reporter at Canary Media. He reports on batteries, long-duration energy storage, low-carbon hydrogen, and clean energy breakthroughs around the world.
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