Colorado Commission Orders Utility to Open Up Grid Capacity Data
April 10, 2026When entities such as solar developers or EV charging companies want to connect clean energy projects to the electric grid, they need to know where, and when, the grid has room for them. In Colorado, that basic information has been remarkably hard to come by. SMW partner Sky Stanfield, with SMW associates Matthew McKerley and Seth Goldman, representing the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC), successfully advocated for changes that will make that information far more accessible.
The proceeding involved Xcel Energy’s distribution system plan, which proposed significant capital investments to upgrade Colorado’s distribution grid. Xcel had published grid capacity maps, which are tools that show where generators or large electricity users can connect, but the public version was blurred to obscure line locations. More detailed maps were available only to those who signed non-disclosure agreements that, as SMW argued, imposed commercially unreasonable cybersecurity obligations and created potential legal liability for signatories. The result was that the very people who needed the data most, that is, developers, municipalities, and businesses looking to site clean energy projects, effectively could not use it.
On behalf of IREC, SMW also pushed back on Xcel’s proposal to handle flexible interconnection on a case-by-case basis rather than through a standardized tariff, as state law required. Flexible interconnection allows generators or large electricity users to connect to the grid with the understanding that their usage may be curtailed during the grid’s most constrained hours, an approach that avoids costly infrastructure upgrades by making smarter use of existing capacity.
In late 2025, the PUC largely sided with IREC. The Commission ordered Xcel to remove restrictions on its hosting capacity maps and update them with current data, with monthly updates required by the end of 2026 and a more detailed, hour-by-hour analysis required by the end of 2027. The Commission also directed Xcel to enable data downloads so that developers can layer grid capacity information with other data such as land availability or transmission corridors to identify the best sites for new projects. Additionally, the Commission required Xcel to develop a standardized flexible interconnection tariff for both generation and load at the distribution level.
The order has the potential to meaningfully accelerate the deployment of distributed energy resources in Colorado by giving market participants the information they need to make smart siting decisions, and to get projects through the interconnection queue faster.
For more information, contact Sky Stanfield, Matthew McKerley, or Seth Goldman.