Colorado residential electricity consumers could pay as much as $6,400 to $9,280 total more in electricity costs per household than they do now through 2040, according to a report from the Common Sense Institute.

“Driven by state policy mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, electricity prices are projected to grow at more than three times the rate of inflation and nearly 13 times the growth rate from 2010 to 2020,” according the report, which was released at the end of January. “Complying with state law will require an investment of $108 billion through 2050.”

The institute is “a non-partisan research organization dedicated to protecting and promoting the economy,” according to its website.

In 2019, the Colorado General Assembly enacted statutes committing the state to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 and 90% by 2050.

“From 2010 to 2020, average residential electricity prices were less than 10 cents per kilowatt-hour,” according to the report. “In 2023, the average cost of electricity for a Colorado household was $1,178, or about 14 cents per kilowatt-hour.”

By 2035, the institute said, electricity rates are projected to cost the average Colorado household an additional $32-to-$38 per month, caused by the new requirements for power generation. The institute based its analysis on a report from the Colorado Energy Office.

This pencils out to an average household paying some $390-to-$457 more per year if their energy consumption remains steady at today’s usage.

Commercial users might pay some $60,000 more per year, and large industrial users could pay as much as $1.1 million more.

If household consumption goes up 20% due to increased electrification, the yearly cost could go as high as $467-to-$549, the report said.

Institute officials believe these increased costs will slow our economy by $2.6 billion in GDP and cost Colorado more than 25,000 jobs.

Part of the dispute between the CSI report and both Xcel Energy and the Colorado Energy Office’s responses revolves around the reality of the costs of renewable energy.

Tricia Curtis, CEO of Petro Nerds, a market intelligence firm, and one of the authors of the CSI report, said the numbers usually cited by renewable energy supporters touting the low cost of renewables like wind and solar do not take into account the cost of the intermittent, unpredictable nature of wind and solar energy, or, for that matter, the cost of building new high-voltage transmissions lines to deliver widely-distributed electricity to the power grid.

Xcel Energy, the state’s largest investor-owned electricity provider, reacted to the CSI report in a statement to The Denver Gazette.

“The forecasts in this report are perplexing and do not seem to consider the realities of the market and utility planning processes,” Xcel officials said. “In coming years, the increase in number of Colorado customers and anticipated technology advancements will also impact the cost of providing energy and what our customers pay.”

“Wind and solar have played an essential part of the clean energy transition for Colorado while keeping customer bills low,” said the company. “From 2014 to 2023, we kept residential electric bill growth to 1.8% per year, and natural gas bill growth to 1.1% per year, both below the rate of inflation. Based on data available (from the) U.S. Energy Information Administration, the most recent year’s average residential electric bill for an Xcel Energy customer was 28% below the national average. We continue to focus on balancing the transitioning energy system with keeping bills affordable.”

Colorado Energy Office officials also blasted the report as inaccurate.

“The CSI report mischaracterizes the analysis of the 2040 scenarios included in the Energy Office-commissioned Ascend Analytics Pathways to Deep Decarbonization report,” said Ari Rosenblum, spokesperson for the office and Gov. Jared Polis. “Our study focused on determining which mix of new resources could reliably meet projected 2040 electric demand in Colorado while minimizing costs to consumers. With no emissions reduction requirement or policy, the study found that the lowest cost path to meeting demand would lower emissions by 97%, largely due to the low cost of wind and solar energy.”

Curtis disagrees and is frustrated by both Xcel and the energy office evading critical analysis of the full costs of the push for renewable energy.

“Both their responses are defensive. Instead of acknowledging that even in Europe, they acknowledge the energy transition has cost, but when you put wind solar into the grid, it increases cost,” Curtis told The Denver Gazette. “I mean, JP Morgan — some of the best work in the country — in their annual energy report, said adding wind and solar into a grid increases cost because it is an intermittent form of energy. It is not dispatchable base load power generation.”

Affordability and reliability should be the issue, Curtis said, but that the state and Xcel are “downplaying what it’s really going to cost consumers to meet Gov. Jared Polis’ greenhouse gas reduction targets.”

“Clearly for the CEO and clearly for Excel, emissions are above all else,” Curtis said. “And they’re using emissions as this thing to allow these costs to increase, to have all these plans that they want.”

She alleged chasing climate-improving goals are futile for Colorado.

“We (Colorado) are 118 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, 118 million out of 40,000 million (40 billion) metric tons,” said Curtis. “The state of Colorado could no longer exist, and the impact on global CO2 emissions would be zero.”

Rosenblum criticized the report as being incomplete.

“This group’s reports sometimes have holes, and, in this case, there is no denying that,” said Rosenblum. “The free market is supplying renewable energy because it’s the most affordable solution to meet growing electricity demand.”

Xcel customers are already on the hook for $1.7 billion to build Xcel’s Power Pathway project in eastern Colorado, and more transmission line projects are in the works.

Curtis said that costs will likely go higher than CSI projects due to the potential increase in electrical loads and the need for more generators with more electrification of homes, businesses and transit.