Colorado’s energy future: The high cost of 100 percent electric vehicles

Preview:

This report is the third installment in a series of three reports analyzing the costs and reliability impacts of Colorado’s climate change mitigation policies. It is a continuation of the work performed by the Center of the American Experiment modeling the cost of renewable energy mandates in states throughout the country.

Key findings from the report include:

• The complete electrification of Colorado’s light-duty vehicle fleet, combined with total residential heating electrification and Colorado Governor Jared Polis’s goal of a 100 percent renewable electricity grid by 2040 (hereafter, Polis Plan+electrification+EV), would cost Coloradans up to $695.3 billion through 2050.
• The additional generation capacity needed to support total light-duty vehicle electrification alone would cost approximately $74.6 billion through 2050.
• Colorado electricity customers (residential, commercial, and industrial) would see their average monthly electricity bills increase to $907 through 2050. They would peak at an average of $1,279 in 2040.
• To meet Colorado’s present-day electricity demand and the additional demand created by electrifying light-duty transportation and home heating with only wind, solar, existing hydropower, and batteries, the state would need to install more than fourteen times the generation capacity currently on the grid.
• Despite this massive increase in installed capacity, Colorado would still experience 25 hours of blackouts spread across three separate events in January and early February 2040 if electricity demand and wind and solar output are similar to 2021.
• Alternatively, Colorado could meet Governor Polis’s electric-sector, residential home heating, and light-duty vehicle decarbonization goals on the same timeline, without reliability issues and at roughly a third of the cost, by transitioning the state’s generating assets to nuclear energy.

A full copy of the report can be viewed here.