Tri-State joins as a founding member of National Renewables Cooperative Organization

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association is among the first to join a national organization focused on the development and deployment of renewable energy by electric cooperatives.  At its March meeting, the association’s board of directors approved the membership subscription agreement with the National Renewables Cooperative Organization (NRCO).

NRCO is a banding together of electric co-ops nationwide jointly working to meet their renewable power legal requirements and portfolio goals.  Currently, more than half the states in the nation have adopted renewable portfolio standards (RPS) – including Colorado and New Mexico, where Tri-State serves member co-ops – which require utilities to meet a set renewable energy megawatt quantity or precise percentage by a specific date.  The federal government is also considering a national renewable standard.

With an initial annual budget of nearly $1 million, NRCO requires a commitment of $100,000 for the first year of the program from a minimum of 10 members.  Generation and transmission cooperatives (such as Tri-State), unaffiliated distribution cooperatives and partial requirements cooperatives that have the legal ability to participate in the wholesale market are eligible for membership.

According to Tri-State executive vice president/general manager J.M. Shafer, "NRCO offers cooperatives a way to pool our resources and efforts into a single national program that shows support for renewables and will put co-ops in a proactive position if a national standard for renewable energy becomes law.” 

Shafer added that NRCO puts co-ops in the national spotlight for support of renewable energy.  “NRCO also serves as a means for co-ops that don't have a lot of opportunity for development of wind, solar or other green power to potentially participate in a national renewable program,” he said.  

Tri-State, a wholesale power supplier to 44 electric co-ops in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming, supported RPS legislation that was passed in Colorado and New Mexico in 2007, under which electric co-ops in both states are required to provide a minimum of 10 percent green power to their consumers by 2020.  The association is working in conjunction with its members in those states to address and meet those mandates, including having issued an RFP late last year for a long-term, bulk supply of renewable resource electricity.

Updated: March 7, 2008