Power plants and the grid in Colorado
Colorado has 329 power plants with 21.8 GW of capacity, natural gas the largest share at 7.5 GW. The map shows 47 data centers in Colorado. Its interconnection queue holds 187 active requests for 38.9 GW.
Capacity by fuel
329 power plants with 21.8 GW of capacity, planned generators left out.
- Natural gas: 7.5 GW from 31 plants (34%)
- Wind: 5.9 GW from 35 plants (27%)
- Solar: 3.7 GW from 187 plants (17%)
- Coal: 3.1 GW from 4 plants (14%)
- Hydro: 701 MW from 46 plants (3%)
- Pumped storage: 570 MW from 2 plants (3%)
- Battery storage: 220 MW from 12 plants (1%)
- Oil: 142 MW from 8 plants (1%)
- Biomass: 16 MW from 3 plants (under 1%)
- Other: 6 MW from 1 plant (under 1%)
Largest plants
- Craig (CO): Coal, 1.3 GW
- Comanche (CO): Coal, 1.1 GW
- Fort St Vrain: Natural gas, 1 GW
- Cherokee: Natural gas, 886 MW
- Rawhide: Natural gas, 668 MW
- Rush Creek Wind: Wind, 600 MW
- Rocky Mountain Energy Center: Natural gas, 592 MW
- Rocky Mountain Solar: Solar, 525 MW
- Pawnee: Natural gas, 505 MW
- Dusty Rose Wind: Wind, 502 MW
Largest plants near Denver
- Cherokee: Natural gas, 886 MW, 8 km away
- JM Shafer Generating Station: Natural gas, 272 MW, 44 km away
- Spindle Hill Energy Center: Natural gas, 270 MW, 40 km away
- Blue Spruce Energy Center: Natural gas, 264 MW, 26 km away
- Frank Knutson: Natural gas, 134 MW, 35 km away
Largest plants near Aurora
- Cherokee: Natural gas, 886 MW, 18 km away
- Rocky Mountain Energy Center: Natural gas, 592 MW, 48 km away
- JM Shafer Generating Station: Natural gas, 272 MW, 45 km away
- Spindle Hill Energy Center: Natural gas, 270 MW, 45 km away
- Blue Spruce Energy Center: Natural gas, 264 MW, 12 km away
Largest plants near Colorado Springs
- Front Range Power Plant: Natural gas, 460 MW, 27 km away
- Ray D Nixon: Coal, 255 MW, 27 km away
- Fountain Valley Power Facility: Natural gas, 234 MW, 35 km away
- Pike Solar Hybrid: Solar, 175 MW, 32 km away
- South Plant (CO): Natural gas, 150 MW, 6 km away
Planned and under construction
46 generators planned, under construction or testing, 6.3 GW in all, not counted above.
- Solar: 2.7 GW
- Battery storage: 1.7 GW
- Wind: 1 GW
- Natural gas: 949 MW
Grid operators
- SPP (ISO or RTO): 8 plants
- Public Service Co. of Colorado (PSCO): 200 plants
- WACM: 120 plants
- PacifiCorp East (PACE): 1 plant
Data centers
47 data center sites on the map.
- Arapahoe County: 13 sites
- Douglas County: 11 sites
- El Paso County: 9 sites
- Denver County: 4 sites
- Adams County: 3 sites
- Operators with the most sites: DataBank (4), EdgeConneX (4), Flexential (4), Centersquare (formerly Evoque) (2), Digital Realty Trust (2), Quality Technology Services (2), XO Communications (2), CenturyLink (1), Cielo Digital Infrastructure (1), CoreSite (1)
Interconnection queue
187 active requests to connect 38.9 GW of new generation and storage, and 19 suspended requests, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Queued Up data.
- Solar: 19.9 GW in 99 requests
- Wind: 11.4 GW in 43 requests
- Natural gas: 3.6 GW in 14 requests
- Battery storage: 3.2 GW in 27 requests
- Coal: 850 MW in 2 requests
- Hydro: 47 MW in 2 requests
Sources
Power plants: EIA-860M (US); NRCan NACEI (Canada, Mexico); WRI GPPD (Mexico); OpenStreetMap via Geofabrik (Canada, Mexico gap fill); USGS USWTDB/USPVDB; EPA eGRID; Natural Earth admin-1; HIFLD control areas; location attributes from WorldPop (R2025A), Global Solar Atlas PVOUT, Global Wind Atlas 4, USFS Wildfire Hazard Potential, the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model and the previous publish's lines and substations; water distances from OpenStreetMap via Geofabrik; gas distances and county queue from the previous publish's EIA gas pipelines and LBNL Queued Up requests; nearest city from Natural Earth populated places; cooling degree days from NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals; elevation and slope from the Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (ESA, via AWS Open Data); water stress from WRI Aqueduct 4.0; ozone nonattainment from the EPA Green Book; drought from the U.S. Drought Monitor; tribal land from US Census TIGER/Line. License: ODbL (derivative database; EIA content is public domain, NRCan OGL-Canada, WRI GPPD CC BY 4.0; location attributes from WorldPop, Global Solar Atlas, Global Wind Atlas, LBNL Queued Up and WRI Aqueduct CC BY 4.0, USFS, USGS, EIA, NOAA, EPA, US Census and Natural Earth public domain, Copernicus DEM GLO-30 © DLR e.V. and Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, the U.S. Drought Monitor courtesy of NDMC)
Places gazetteer (cities, airports, regions): Natural Earth populated places; OurAirports; Natural Earth admin-1; Wattlas curated places. License: Public domain
Data centers: Epoch AI (CC BY); OpenStreetMap via the public Overpass API (ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Ringmast4r Global-Data-Center-Map (custom permissive license, attribution required); location attributes from WorldPop (R2025A), Global Solar Atlas PVOUT, Global Wind Atlas 4, USFS Wildfire Hazard Potential, the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model and the previous publish's lines and substations; gas distances and county queue from the previous publish's EIA gas pipelines and LBNL Queued Up requests; nearest city from Natural Earth populated places; generation within 20 km from the previous publish's plants; cooling degree days from NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals; elevation and slope from the Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (ESA, via AWS Open Data); water stress from WRI Aqueduct 4.0; ozone nonattainment from the EPA Green Book; drought from the U.S. Drought Monitor; tribal land from US Census TIGER/Line. License: CC BY; ODbL; custom permissive; WRI Aqueduct CC BY 4.0; USFS, USGS, EIA, NOAA, EPA, US Census and Natural Earth public domain; Copernicus DEM GLO-30 © DLR e.V. and Airbus Defence and Space GmbH; the U.S. Drought Monitor courtesy of NDMC
Interconnection queue requests: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and GridTracker, "Queued Up". License: CC BY 4.0
States and provinces (simplified polygons): Natural Earth 10m admin-1. License: Public domain