In recognition of National Co-op Month, we talk to Chris Hansen, who oversees La Plata Electric Association.
Hansen and KSUT's Tami Graham discuss how the member-owned cooperative is working to balance affordability, reliability, and sustainability in southwest Colorado.
They also talk about LPEA's planned termination of its service agreement with Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which is scheduled to happen in April of 2026.
Interview transcript
This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Tami Graham, KSUT: For our listeners who may not be familiar with you as of yet, maybe just a little bit about your background.
Chris Hansen, La Plata Electric Association: I came to Durango after having served in the state legislature for eight years. Started off in the state House and then in the state Senate, and was representing east Denver as a state senator, but in that time, served on the joint budget committee, did a lot of work on energy policy, and so got to Durango about a half dozen times in my state work, which was great. And before I was in the state legislature, I had worked for 10 years in the private sector, in the energy industry, did energy sector planning, electricity system planning all over the world, got posted to Dubai and Singapore and Australia, exotic Michigan, did projects all over the place. Prior to that, did my graduate work in engineering and energy economics at the Master's and PhD level. I was really excited to get back to the electricity sector when I got offered this job.
Graham: It's National Co-op Month, which kind of triggered the reason for having this conversation now. I know there's a whole lot going on with LPEA in celebration of that month. Is there anything happening that you want to highlight for this month?
Hansen: We've got some exciting chances to interact and share time with our members over this co-op month. It's something we really try to do more outreach in October to help our members get up to speed on many of the things happening in the electricity sector and how it affects our local community. One of those events we're calling Community Power X. It's kind of done in the style of TEDx. We're going to bring in some great speakers around regional transmission grids, energy storage technologies, and the addition of new hydro capacity into our system, particularly with the facility near Vato that lots of folks are familiar with. So, some great topics for energy nerds. I know maybe regional transmission grids are probably not the first thing people think of when they get out of bed in the morning, but it's going to have a big impact on us here in southwest Colorado and with our neighbors in every direction.
On October 23rd, we rented out Gaslight Theater in downtown Durango and would love to have you join us for that.
We're also doing some tours of our Sunnyside facility just south of Durango. Those are available on October 18th. Folks can check out our website and sign up for those. We're doing an arc demo if you want to learn more about high voltage electricity, and bring your kids, it's a pretty spectacular demonstration about how to be safe around electricity and how to use electricity safely. So those are some of the big things we have coming up. And then I'm continuing my outreach across the entire service territory with things we call Coffee with Chris, where I show up at a local coffee shop and just have an hour to answer questions and respond to any concerns that folks have.
Graham: (LPEA) serves a pretty broad region, five counties and four different tribes between our two signals. La Plata Electric's service area is La Plata County and Archuleta County, the fifth largest co-op in Colorado of the 22 co-ops. So, a large organization, especially for this rural region. Chris, share a little bit about your approach, again as a relatively new CEO at LPEA. How do you balance affordability, reliability, sustainability, all these things that might on the surface seem like they might be competing interests?
Hansen: I think that is the most appropriate question you could have asked me because I think that's what we grapple with every day on behalf of the membership is how to really create those three important legs of the stool, so to speak. We are laser-focused on affordability. I've been really proud of what the team has been able to accomplish. The board made the decision to leave our wholesale supplier. That goes into effect on April 1st, 2026, and overnight, our wholesale power prices are actually going to go down, and that is a great message to be able to deliver to the membership. Our Tri-State Generation has been our supplier for many years. Their rates are going to increase next year by seven and a half percent. And at the same time, our wholesale costs are actually going to fall from where they are today. So we're going to have an almost 20% gap in the reduction in our wholesale power costs.
Now, I want to be clear that's for bulk electricity. We also, of course, have the cost of delivering that power to people's homes. So all of those lines you see, we've got to maintain those and replace them, respond to storms. So all the costs that go along with operating the system are still unfortunately rising because of inflation and tariffs, but those wholesale costs are actually going to come down. Our board has said that my goal as CEO and for the co-op in general is to be less expensive than 70% of our Colorado co-op peers by 2026. We will definitely be cheaper than 70% of our peers.
The second part of your question about sustainability, also top of mind for our board, state law says that we need to be 80% carbon-free in our supply by the end of the decade. That is our legal requirement, and we are on track to exceed that, actually do slightly better than the state goal. And so by 2030 will be in the above 80% as far as carbon-free electricity supply. So those are really the big goals that the board has set for me and that I'm working closely with my team to make sure we deliver and really make sure our members are getting great value. And that, of course, is different for different types of members. You've got folks who are irrigating, you've got folks running a business in downtown Durango. They've got different needs and concerns, and we're just trying to make sure we can supply everyone with affordable, sustainable power and do it with high reliability. And I think I'll end on that note to your question. Our reliability figures are almost twice as good as the industry average.
So we measure it on things like the number of outages and the duration of outages. And we are performing at a really great level when we look at our statistics versus other co-ops around Colorado or other co-ops around the nation. So that's something that I think our members can be really proud of is that of course, we're not going to be perfect. There are going to be storms, there are going to be raccoons and squirrels who jump on our lines. So there will be outages, but we try to keep them as short as possible and maintain that really high reliability.
Graham: Well, I know as a member, KSUT, as a member of LPEA, we rely very heavily on LPEA for electricity at many of our tower sites. And so we always appreciate the intense effort. I know when there are power outages to get things back up and running so we can continue to serve our listeners. So I know you have, again, you mentioned a goal of increasing your renewable energy sources in our community, and I wonder if you could just speak to if there's anything additional you'd like to add on that front. I know it's been a long-term conversation at LPEA as well as separating potentially at one point, which is now pending in April from Tri-State. Anything else you'd like to share about the renewable energy sources?
Hansen: Yeah, I just really want to assure everyone that reliability is our very first step whenever we're looking at bringing on a new power source or a new supply. Reliability is at the front of our minds, and we have reserve margins and an extra cushion to make sure that we're always keeping the lights on. Our strategy around reducing our emissions on behalf of the members is really three-pronged strategy. We're looking first at local sources, how can we add new hydro, new solar, new geothermal, really looking at every option we can for local sources of carbon-free electricity as well as gas fire generation to be part of the portfolio. So we're not excluding anything there, but to your question about how do we decarbonize, really think about it as local sources first and then look to our neighbors. So, for instance, we're contracting with the solar facility in Dolores to buy output from that solar farm that's really going to help us meet our customer and member needs.
And then our final strategy is to access carbon-free electricity from the wider regional market. So that opens up opportunities for wind power from different parts of the region, New Mexico and Colorado, other solar sources that are maybe a hundred or 200 miles away as opposed to next door. So combining all three of those, we get a really nice mix in our portfolio and make sure that we have high reliability while having heavy competition to lower costs. And we're really now seeing the advantage of that as we go out to the market and get bids. We're getting lots of competition, and that helps push costs down for our members as we access all these different sources. So yeah, that's a really exciting moment for the team is to look more broadly, and we can be very creative on behalf of the co-op members.
