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On Aug. 1, 2025, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis reiterated the state’s commitment to solar energy development.

“We are also formally directing state agencies and industry partners to prioritize creating and permitting renewable energy projects that save people money, create jobs and power Colorado’s economy,” Polis said.

Over the past five legislative sessions, Colorado lawmakers and Gov. Polis have enacted a series of aggressive climate commitments — including 100% clean energy by 2040, closure of all coal-fired power plants by 2031, and an 80% greenhouse gas reduction requirement for large-scale utility providers. Colorado also mandates that investor-owned utilities allow community-scale solar projects and mobilizes state and federal funding for low-income and rural solar development.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Colorado produces 4,500 megawatts of solar energy, 40% of which was built in the past year. Still, the state must quintuple that capacity before 2040 to meet its clean energy goals.

The Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, provided a major boost to those goals by injecting billions of dollars into solar infrastructure nationwide. Ted Compton, vice president of the board for La Plata Electric Association, said the IRA had a historic impact on rural energy.

“I would just say that the IRA as a whole, you know, with its tax provisions included, is probably the most impactful federal policy for rural electricity since the 1936 Rural Electrification Act,” Compton said. “It’s a big statement, but I think if you think about it a little bit, you’d be hard pressed to disagree. The things that are happening because of this are things that haven’t happened at such a pace, really, since back in that 1936.”

The Rural Electrification Act of 1936, part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, offered low-interest loans to rural farms and helped establish cooperatives that built much of today’s electric infrastructure. The IRA played a similar role by funding residential and low-income solar projects, bolstering tribal and rural electric systems, and financing thousands of megawatts of renewable projects nationwide.

Before the IRA and Colorado’s renewable energy push, utility-scale solar began in California. Dustin Mulvaney, a professor of environmental studies at the University of San Jose, studied solar development in the California desert starting in the mid-2000s.

“So when the first wave of solar projects came in, and they were really, you know, either adjacent to or within areas that were believed to be in conservation, that created a lot of conflict—controversial projects—and that was before the Western Solar Plan,” Mulvaney said.

The Western Solar Plan, launched in 2012 by the Bureau of Land Management, covers 11 states and designates 31 million acres for solar development. Mulvaney said the plan helped streamline future projects.

“You know, that helps mediate the conflicts, because it eliminates many of the most controversial areas, and then it creates opportunities to get projects pretty much, you know, rubber stamped inside the solar energy zones,” he said.

These solar energy zones, or SEZs, simplify permitting. Colorado has three SEZs, and under the 2024 plan, about 470,000 acres of BLM land are open for solar development.

When factoring in private land, the potential for solar is immense. KC Becker, former Colorado House speaker and current CEO of the Colorado Solar and Storage Association, said the state has ample room to grow.

“You know, Colorado is 66 million acres. About a third of our state is federal public land, about 2.8 million acres is state land, and the state estimates that to meet our renewable energy goals, we need about 70,000 additional acres for solar development,” Becker said.

In 2024, the opportunities for solar seemed boundless — strong federal incentives, a supportive state government, and hundreds of thousands of acres open for projects.

But in 2025, Colorado’s solar future faces uncertainty. The state currently has no solar projects on public land, and billions in federal funding evaporated when President Trump dismantled the IRA after taking office. Local utility cooperatives are now rushing to capitalize on renewable energy tax credits set to expire in 2026 by building on private land.

Becker said community resistance has also become a growing challenge.

“So in the grand scheme of things, it’s really not a lot of land, and sometimes what local communities find is that, you know, to really see what can get through what’s a pretty difficult process of getting solar built—they may have a lot of projects in the pipeline, but at the end of the day, they may not make it through all the hurdles. And there are lots of hurdles,” she said.

This is the first story in a four-part series exploring the hurdles of solar energy in Western Colorado — from funding to policy and community values. The next story examines where solar is winning and losing, and how it transcends political lines. Find the whole series at koto.org.

* This series is funded by the Colorado Media Project and the Spotlight: Colorado Fund.