Holy Cross Energy and Pitkin County Commission 5 MW Solar-Plus-Storage Microgrid at Aspen Airport Business Center

Emergency & Local Government Microgrids News
Marin Holt
June 23, 2026
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5 minutes read

Solar array: 5 MW (Pitkin County Solar)
Configuration: Solar-plus-storage islandable microgrid
Commissioned: June 23, 2026
Partners: Holy Cross Energy, Pitkin County, RFTA

Holy Cross Energy, Pitkin County, and the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority commissioned an integrated clean-energy microgrid at the Aspen Airport Business Center (AABC) in Colorado on June 23, 2026, tying the 5 MW Pitkin County Solar array to a large-scale battery system and controls that let the campus run as an energy island when the surrounding grid goes down. Holy Cross Energy, the local electric cooperative, calls it one of the state’s most advanced public-sector resilience microgrids.

The three partners started the effort after the 2018 Lake Christine Fire, which showed how fast a wildfire can sever power across the upper Roaring Fork Valley. The system pairs the Pitkin County Solar array with battery storage and a microgrid controller that can disconnect the AABC campus from Holy Cross Energy’s distribution feeder and keep it running on local generation. Among the loads it protects is the RFTA operations center that dispatches regional transit. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs joined as a funding partner.

During normal operation, the solar array and battery feed Holy Cross Energy’s grid and trim peak demand at the business park. When an outage hits, the controller islands the campus and prioritizes critical public services rather than falling back on diesel gensets. Officials involved included Holy Cross Energy President and CEO Bryan Hannegan, Pitkin County Commissioner board chair Jeffrey Woodruff, and RFTA CEO Kurt Ravenschlag.

Why It Matters

Wildfire-driven outages and public-safety power shutoffs have turned resilience from a talking point into a budget line for mountain-West local governments. The AABC project gives rural counties a template that does not depend on stockpiling fuel: a utility, a county, and a transit agency splitting the cost of one shared, islandable asset. It also shows Holy Cross Energy can hold up reliability for a public campus with solar and storage instead of a combustion backstop, a harder test than backing up a single building. Counties weighing similar investments should note that the microgrid grew out of a specific 2018 fire, not a generic climate plan, which is what unlocked the multi-agency funding.

Critical Perspective

Holy Cross Energy connected the 5 MW Pitkin County Solar array to battery storage and islanding controls at the Aspen Airport Business Center. Neither the announcement nor the key facts state the battery’s megawatt-hour rating, the number that decides whether the campus rides through a multi-day wildfire shutoff or only a brief flicker, a gap that utility-scale islands like the Borrego Springs microgrid closed by sizing storage to their real island load. California’s Blue Lake Rancheria microgrid proved the model when its solar-and-storage island kept a hotel, fuel station, and medical facility running through the multi-day 2019 Public Safety Power Shutoffs. If the next fire triggers a week-long outage, how many hours can 5 MW of solar and an undisclosed battery actually keep the RFTA transit dispatch center online?