Current regulatory posture
Colorado did not enact a 2026 statute governing large-load data center energy service. SB26-102, the principal 2026 energy, water, and ratepayer-protection bill for large-load data centers, was postponed indefinitely by the Senate Transportation & Energy Committee on May 11 by a 9-0 vote (Colorado General Assembly, 2026-05-11).
The most important active energy-regulatory development is now at the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. On April 2, 2026, Xcel Energy filed a proposed Large Load Tariff in Proceeding No. 26AL-0137E for high-demand customers such as large-scale data centers; the PUC’s April 2026 newsletter said the Commission would consider procedural steps for the tariff on April 29, including whether to set the matter for hearing, suspend the effective date for 120 days, and establish notice and intervention deadlines (Colorado PUC, 2026-04-17).
Decision No. C26-0280, issued April 30, suspended the proposed tariff sheets for 120 days and opened the matter for notice and intervention. Interim Decision No. C26-0396-I, adopted June 10 and issued June 15, established a broad party list that includes Google, the Data Center Coalition, local governments, consumer advocates, and clean-energy organizations; it ordered the parties to propose a schedule and stated a preference for consecutive evidentiary hearings ending no later than October 28. The tariff had not received a final decision by July 17, and Xcel’s May investor presentation still anticipated a decision in early 2027 (Colorado PUC Decision C26-0396-I, 2026-06-15; Xcel Energy, 2026-05).
Large-load tariff and cost allocation
Xcel’s proposed Large Load Tariff would apply to new customers requiring 50 MW or more and could also reach new 20-50 MW customers. The proposal is designed to make those customers cover the cost of dedicated transmission lines, substations, interconnection upgrades, and new generation capacity needed to serve them, rather than shifting those costs to existing customers (Colorado PUC, 2026-04-17).
The proposed tariff also includes long-term contract requirements of at least 15 years, minimum monthly payments, and early-termination charges to reduce stranded-cost risk. The PUC newsletter also described pathways for large users to pursue or use innovative carbon-free power sources under the tariff framework (Colorado PUC, 2026-04-17).
Public Service’s filing would add a new Schedule Transmission Large Service rate class for customers with at least 50 MW of load and a voluntary Clean Transition Tariff that would allow large-load customers to pay to be served by zero-emission resources. The filed tariff may change through the PUC proceeding (Earthjustice filing, 2026-05; Xcel Energy, 2026-05).
SB26-102 would have put similar cost-causation principles into statute by requiring large-load data center operators with utility contracts of at least 15 years to pay all utility costs needed to supply electricity and maintain grid reliability, including curtailment and reserve costs. Because the bill died, those statutory requirements did not take effect, leaving the PUC tariff proceeding as the primary live venue for cost allocation (Colorado Legislative Council Staff, 2026-03-16; Colorado General Assembly, 2026-05-11).
Black Hills Energy’s large-load-relevant Proceeding No. 25A-0500E reached a final result during the update window. On April 8, the PUC approved a modified settlement establishing an Economic Development Rate for qualifying commercial and industrial customers, including Large Power Service customers adding at least 3 MW and demonstrating that electricity cost is decisive to their location or expansion. The tariff is not data-center-specific; the PUC said its standardized eligibility and direct-cost provisions were intended to prevent cost shifting to existing customers (Colorado PUC, 2026-04-17).
Colorado Springs Utilities, a municipally owned utility outside PUC rate regulation, also modified its large-load framework. On February 24, City Council adopted Resolution 10-26, effective March 1, clarifying that the Industrial Service - Large Load schedule for customers at or above 10 MW does not limit the utility’s ability to negotiate Economic Development Special Contracts. The underlying large-load structure still assigns market-power and service-infrastructure costs to the large customer while system resources are developed (City of Colorado Springs, 2026-02-24; Colorado Springs Utilities, 2026-03-02).
Interconnection, reporting, and flexible load
The 2026 legislature considered, but did not enact, data-center-specific interconnection reporting. SB26-102 would have required utilities to report monthly to the PUC on large-load data center interconnection-request counts, capacity, and status by June 30, 2028; it also would have required utilities to develop demand-response or flexible-load tariffs and would have barred economic-development rates for large-load data centers (Colorado Legislative Council Staff, 2026-03-16).
The failed bill would also have prohibited a utility from interconnecting or serving a large-load data center after January 1, 2031, unless the data center complied with renewable-energy matching requirements. It would have required the PUC, Colorado Energy Office, and Air Pollution Control Division to determine by June 30, 2030, whether 100 percent hourly renewable matching was technically and economically feasible (Colorado Legislative Council Staff, 2026-03-16).
HB26-1246 would have allowed new industrial, commercial, and data-center loads to obtain power from an off-grid “consumer-regulated electric utility” without PUC regulation until that utility interconnected with the grid. The House Energy & Environment Committee postponed it indefinitely on April 30 by an 8-5 vote, so Colorado did not create that alternative large-load service path (Colorado General Assembly, 2026-04-30).
At the wholesale level, FERC on June 18 ordered all six regional transmission organizations and independent system operators to explain whether their tariffs are just and reasonable for co-located and other large loads or propose reforms. Colorado retail tariffs remain under state jurisdiction, but the federal inquiry can affect regional generation interconnection, transmission planning, and co-location options available to Colorado large loads (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 2026-06-18).
Utility load forecasts and planning context
Large-load growth was already a central planning issue before the 2026 session. In August 2025, the Colorado Sun reported that Xcel Energy had 5.8 GW of pending data-center applications, a forecast of 8.5 GW of data-center load by 2040, and an estimated need for 12-14 GW of generation and transmission investment costing about $22 billion to serve that growth (Colorado Sun, 2025-08-18).
The April 2026 tariff filing showed why the headline queue is not a firm build forecast. Public Service projected that large loads would account for about two-thirds of new demand and said it expected to need roughly 950 MW of new generation over five years, but it also reported that, during one six-month period in 2024-25, seven prospective projects totaling about 4,000 MW withdrew while more than a dozen totaling about 3,500 MW entered the process. The churn makes queue reform, repeated load forecasts, and exit protections material to resource planning (Colorado Sun, 2026-04-02).
The Colorado Legislative Council’s March 2026 memorandum described data centers as a major driver of electricity-demand growth and estimated that Colorado had about 57 data centers. The memo identified grid cost, energy price, clean-energy procurement, water use, backup generation emissions, and noise as recurring policy concerns (Colorado Legislative Council Staff, 2026-03-05).
HB26-1030’s final fiscal note illustrates the scale policymakers expected if a statewide incentive were enacted: Legislative Council Staff assumed at least three qualifying projects in 2027 with about $1.5 billion in capital investment and five additional data centers in 2028. The bill died, but the estimate is relevant to grid-planning discussions because it shows the volume of projects the state believed could materialize under a Colorado incentive program (Colorado Legislative Council Staff, 2026-06-08).
Xcel’s current electric-resource planning process is sized for that broader load-growth uncertainty. The PUC finalized Phase I of the 2024 Electric Resource Plan on January 14 and authorized Xcel to seek up to 6,000 MW of resources in Phase II; the solicitation is not exclusively for data centers, but it is the principal near-term procurement process against which large-load forecasts will be tested (Colorado PUC, 2026-02-13).
Resource adequacy also produced a contested fossil-generation proposal during the update window. In a March 2 report, Xcel presented options for extending Comanche 2 and the two Hayden coal units as late as 2030 amid near-term capacity shortfalls, delayed projects, and rising demand; its five-year forecast included 318 MW of data-center load, although data centers were only one component of the forecast. On June 15, Xcel narrowed the immediate request to keeping Comanche 2 open through March 2028 and accelerating or purchasing other fossil generation. The proposal, including roughly $77 million for the other projects plus additional Comanche spending, remained before the PUC at the cutoff (Colorado Sun, 2026-03-10; Colorado Public Radio, 2026-06-17).
Transmission developments
The PUC issued a final decision on April 6, 2026, in Proceeding No. 25A-0354E authorizing Xcel to construct the Elbert County segment of the Colorado Power Pathway, a 550-mile, 345-kV transmission project intended to connect customers with generation opportunities in northeast, eastern, and southeastern Colorado. The Commission also ordered Xcel to pay Elbert County a $2.5 million impact fee (Colorado PUC, 2026-04-17).
The Colorado Power Pathway decision is not a data-center-specific order, but it is relevant to the same load-growth problem because new large loads depend on transmission additions, substation upgrades, and generation deliverability. The PUC’s April 2026 newsletter discussed the Pathway order and Xcel’s proposed Large Load Tariff in the same monthly regulatory update, underscoring that Colorado is addressing both network buildout and large-load cost allocation at the same time (Colorado PUC, 2026-04-17).
Project-load signals
CoreSite’s Denver DE3 expansion is a near-term load signal in the Denver market. CoreSite describes the full campus expansion as more than 590,000 square feet and 60 critical megawatts, with the first building, DE3, planned at about 170,000 square feet and 18 critical megawatts. CoreSite said the first phase was completed in June, while its own construction page described operations as scheduled for June and generator commissioning as construction neared completion. Because the sales page still labeled the facility “coming soon” on July 17, DE3 is best treated as completed first phase/commissioning rather than fully available (Colorado Sun, 2026-06-18; CoreSite construction update, 2026-06; CoreSite, accessed 2026-07-17).
Flexential’s Parker project is another active load signal. The $192 million, 22.5 MW, 249,000-square-foot facility is powered by CORE Electric Cooperative and was under construction with expected completion in January 2027 (Rocky Mountain PBS, 2026-06-15; Town of Parker, accessed 2026-07-17).
Novva’s Colorado Springs campus remains an operating load in the Colorado Springs market. Novva’s Colorado facility page, modified March 11, 2026, describes a 68-acre campus with 122,000 square feet, 40 MW capacity, service from Colorado Springs Utilities, ambient-air cooling, and waterless-cooling features (Novva Data Centers, 2026-03-11).
DOE’s April 2025 AI-infrastructure RFI identified NREL’s Flatirons Campus near Boulder as a potential 100 MW data center and energy-system test-bed site. This is a potential federal-site opportunity rather than a Colorado PUC-approved utility load (U.S. Department of Energy, 2025-04).
Raeden’s proposed Colorado Springs “Project Taurus” is another large-load signal. The city administratively approved the 50-55 MW retrofit on June 11, but accepted five appeals and scheduled a July 23 public hearing, so the load remained contingent at the cutoff (Colorado Public Radio, 2026-06-15; Colorado Public Radio, 2026-06-24; The Gazette, 2026-07-02).
QTS’s Aurora campus is a larger near-term load and backup-generation signal. By July, one of three buildings was complete, a second was nearly complete, and site work had begun for the third at a campus expected to require at least 160 MW. QTS sought an air permit for 98 additional diesel backup generators beyond 40 already installed, which would bring backup capacity to roughly 345 MW; state permit review and public comment remained pending (Colorado Public Radio, 2026-07-08).
Global AI’s proposed former-Kodak-site project could become the largest northern Colorado load, but its scale remained highly contingent. The developer discussed an initial 18-24 MW facility, expansion to 50-60 MW, and an eventual ceiling of 1 GW that would require additional transmission or generation; Windsor said the unincorporated Weld County project remained under county review and had no formal Windsor utility agreement (Data Center Dynamics, 2026-02-09; Town of Windsor, accessed 2026-07-17). A separate 365 Data Centers-Aphorio Carter partnership announced an approximately 200 MW national pipeline and identified an undeveloped Aurora site as its starting project, but did not disclose the Colorado site’s individual MW allocation (GlobeNewswire, 2026-05-06; Data Center Dynamics, 2026-06-02).
BluSky AI’s proposed Walsenburg facility is a smaller, still-contingent load signal. Its 2025 SEC filing described a $248,000 agreement for 36.06 acres and a facility of up to 15 MW, but March reporting found no formal land-sale action and quoted the mayor as doubting that the town council would provide municipal utility service. The gap between the corporate announcement and local utility readiness is another reason not to treat announced megawatts as committed load (BluSky AI SEC filing, 2025-08-26; Colorado Politics, 2026-03-29).
Backup generation, water, and clean-energy constraints
SB26-102 would have required large-load data centers to implement water-efficient technologies, procure enough renewable electricity to meet 100 percent of annual consumption beginning January 1, 2031, and meet any feasible hourly matching requirement established by state agencies. It also would have limited on-site combustion backup generation by requiring operators to test non-combustion alternatives and by requiring diesel or fuel-oil generators to meet EPA Tier 4 final standards. These requirements died with the bill (Colorado Legislative Council Staff, 2026-03-16).
The March 2026 Legislative Council memo remains the state’s main public synthesis of environmental impacts. It notes that cooling choices drive water use, that data center water data are often proprietary, and that fossil-fueled backup generators can emit fine particulates, nitrogen oxides, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and other pollutants with public-health implications (Colorado Legislative Council Staff, 2026-03-05).
The QTS permit application made those general concerns concrete: the proposed Aurora generator expansion would raise the campus total to 138 diesel units, while the company described the generators as emergency backup rather than normal supply. QTS said its closed-loop cooling system used about 2,400 gallons per day. Separately, CoreSite revised its Denver expansion water estimate to about 115,000 gallons per day on average and 230,000 gallons at peak, well below the earlier 805,000-gallon estimate cited by Legislative Council Staff (Colorado Public Radio, 2026-07-08).
The University of Colorado Law School’s Getches-Wilkinson Center added a national water-policy synthesis on July 14. Its report grouped state responses into disclosure, efficiency, siting, and incentive conditions and found a patchwork rather than a uniform regulatory model; that framework is directly relevant to the water-driven Colorado moratoria and the failed statewide reporting provisions in SB26-102 (University of Colorado Boulder via Newswise, 2026-07-14).