Xcel Energy’s plan to close two aging coal-fired units and add more wind and solar generation is a promising opportunity to ensure that, by 2026, more than half of the electricity it provides Colorado will come from renewable resources.

It is all the more attractive because the company says it can do that while promoting $2.5 billion in clean-energy projects in rural Colorado – and saving its customers tens of millions of dollars. The caveat to the plan, which Xcel has submitted to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, is that if it can’t beat the electricity cost of the coal-fired plants, it won’t go ahead with it.

Since 2010, Xcel has shuttered about 1,100 megawatts of coal-fired power plants, and closing the Comanche 1 and 2 units in Pueblo, by 2025, would add another 660 megawatts to the list.

Read more at The Denver Post.