Xcel Energy's Colorado utility has asked the state Supreme Court to intervene in a land dispute that's preventing the company from connecting two nearly finished wind farms — totaling more than 1 gigawatt — to the electrical grid. Public Service Co. of Colorado filed the request on July 31, arguing the case raises a critical statewide question about whether regulated utilities can use eminent domain to secure easements for transmission lines that link renewable energy projects to the grid. The utility-owned Singing Grass and Cheyenne Ridge II projects are part of a plan approved by state regulators in January 2024 to add roughly 6.1 GW to the system.
The 603-MW Singing Grass and 450-MW Cheyenne Ridge II wind projects are being built near Burlington in eastern Colorado, close to the company's roughly $1.7 billion Power Pathway transmission project. In June, a district court judge blocked PSCo's attempt to obtain approximately 550 feet of easement through eminent domain — land needed for generation tie-lines to connect the wind farms to a substation. The Cheyenne Ridge II project requires a 5.4-mile tie-line to reach the substation, while the Singing Grass project needs a 28.8-mile tie-line. The utility secured rights for nearly the entire length of both tie-lines from more than 100 landowners, but one landowner issue involving about 550 feet of easement remains unresolved after years of negotiations. PSCo expected Cheyenne Ridge II to be operating in May 2026 and Singing Grass to be online three months later, according to a mid-May filing with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. At that time, all wind turbines for Cheyenne Ridge II were built and 108 out of 134 wind generators at Singing Grass were topped out.
The district court ruling will "disrupt the legal framework governing how renewable projects connect to Colorado's grid and delay critical renewable energy development statewide," PSCo told the Colorado Supreme Court. The utility warned that if the order stands, any landowner controlling the sole access point to critical energy infrastructure could dictate access terms without any check by condemnation authority, holding renewable energy projects hostage to private pricing demands and raising costs for ratepayers statewide. Cheyenne County District Court Judge Mike Davidson ruled that PSCo's eminent domain effort failed to meet legal requirements, rejecting the utility's argument that the tie-lines between the wind farms and substation qualified as transmission lines under Colorado law. Davidson also found that PSCo negotiated in bad faith with Dryland Partners, the landowner, after the company switched course and moved to take a parcel needed for interconnection via eminent domain — offering to pay less than $20,000 for land that would make it impossible for the landowner to secure agreements with renewable energy developers worth millions.
The dispute centers on access to the Goose Creek substation through land owned by Dryland Partners, which sold PSCo about 90 acres for $585,000 in 2022 so the utility could build the substation. Dryland then worked with PSCo to create corridors for the needed tie-lines, and the landowner entered into an easement agreement at market rates to allow interconnection of NextEra Energy's 500-MW Dusty Rose wind farm to the same substation. Judge Davidson noted that PSCo knew the route it sought to condemn was reserved by Dryland as an oil and gas easement, the loss of which would have a significant economic impact on the landowner. PSCo has asked the Colorado Court of Appeals to review the district court decision, but that process could take more than a year — and the utility still needs a permit from Cheyenne County for a portion of the Singing Grass tie-line, which the county has said it won't act on until the land-rights issue is resolved. Once the permit is received, PSCo expects it could finish building the tie-line in about three months, with an additional month of testing needed before the wind farms could begin sending energy to the grid.