Queridos miembros,
At Holy Cross Energy, leadership begins at home. As a member-owned, not-for-profit cooperative, our Board lives and works in the communities we serve. That local presence ensures decisions are made with a deep understanding of your needs and a clear sense of responsibility to future generations.
Our Annual Report provides an update on our Strategic Plan and our mission to deliver safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy to our members. In 2025, Holy Cross Energy demonstrated what local decision-making can achieve. We reached a milestone that few utilities anywhere in the country can claim: roughly 90% of the energy we deliver now comes from renewable sources while keeping rates among the lowest in Colorado, maintaining strong system reliability, and investing directly in the communities we serve.
That progress reflects something we believe in deeply: that the best energy decisions are made close to home. Long-term planning shaped by member priorities. Partnerships that strengthen local resilience. Programs that give members a direct role in shaping our energy future.
Thank you for your trust and continued engagement. Together, we are building an energy system that reflects the values and needs of the communities we are proud to call home.
On behalf of the Holy Cross Energy Board of Directors, it is an honor to serve you.
Adam Quinton
2025-2026 Board Chair
Like the pika that thrives in our high country by making the most of every resource, we work to stretch every dollar so our members get the most value for their money.
In 2025, Holy Cross Energy continued to deliver some of the most affordable electricity in Colorado. Our rates remain in the lowest third of all Colorado electric utilities, even as we invest in important long term strategic goals focused on system reliability and clean energy.
Being locally owned means we reinvest directly into our system and communities, not into shareholder profits, helping keep bills stable today and into the future.
Our partnership with three utility-scale solar and battery storage facilities in Garfield County brings more clean energy onto our local grid while reducing the need to purchase expensive peak-time power from wholesale providers. That helps keep costs down for all members. Pictured here: High Mesa Solar+Storage in Parachute.
Bighorn sheep navigate the most rugged terrain without missing a step, just like how we deliver dependable power to our members no matter the conditions.
Holy Cross Energy operates in one of the most geographically and environmentally diverse regions in Colorado. In 2025, system reliability remained strong overall, though total outage minutes increased compared to prior years. This unusual increase was driven primarily by local wildlife interactions with electrical equipment, a challenge unique to our mountain and rural service territory.
While we already have strong wildlife protection measures in place across our system, we are continually upgrading electrical equipment with additional guards, insulation, and barriers designed to help keep birds, squirrels, and other animals away from energized infrastructure.
Non-wildlife-related outages remained consistent with historical trends, underscoring the strength of our core system operations.
By addressing local causes with local solutions, we’re continuing to strengthen service for our members.
Over two days in February and July 2025, dozens of our operations crew members replaced aging poles and power lines along Colorado River Road north of Dotsero. With the area’s rugged terrain limiting ground access, crews used helicopter support to transport poles into place. This critical upgrade helps improve reliability in one of the most rural and isolated parts of our service territory.
The black bear’s instinct to protect what matters most mirrors our commitment to keeping our members, employees, and communities safe, every single day.
Safety continues to be a foundational pillar of Holy Cross Energy. In 2025, we placed expanded emphasis on enhancing wildfire mitigation and improving safety for crews, members, and the natural environment we share.
Internally, we continued to foster our strong safety culture built on accountability, continuous learning, and leadership at all levels. This commitment has resulted in a Total Recordable Case Incident Rate of just 1.8, continuing a decade‑long downward trend.
Throughout the year, our in-house vegetation management crews work across our entire service territory to trim and remove vegetation within utility rights-of-way near our power lines. In both rural areas and towns, this ongoing work helps reduce wildfire risk, improve reliability, and maintain safe access to critical electric infrastructure for our members.
The rainbow trout can only thrive in clean, cold, healthy water. Our commitment to sustainability helps protect the rivers and landscapes our community calls home.
In 2025, we reached a major milestone by purchasing an average of 85% clean, carbon-free electricity throughout the year, with a single-month record of 97% in May.
This progress reflects a deliberate strategy that combines large‑scale resources with locally based clean energy projects all at a low stable prices.
Our Power Supply Roadmap outlines how utility-scale wind, solar, and storage will work alongside distributed energy resources such as community solar and member‑owned batteries. Together, these investments move us steadily toward 100% carbon‑free electricity by 2030.
Our long-term renewable energy contracts, like the wind energy we purchase from Bronco Plains II in eastern Colorado, helps stabilize costs and keep rates in the lowest third of all Colorado electric utilities. This low-cost, fixed-price resource alone accounted for 31% of the power supply we purchased for members in 2025.
The elk’s seasonal migration is one of nature’s great acts of resource management: moving smarter, not harder. Just as our energy programs help members make smart choices about their energy use.
Our energy programs provide true benefits for all our members. In 2025, Power+, Power+ Flex, and Peak Time Payback demonstrated how thousands of small, local actions can create system‑wide benefits.
Through Power+ and Power+FLEX, members with home battery storage systems earn rebates and bill credits for allowing us to dispatch those batteries during peak periods.
Peak Time Payback rewards members for voluntarily reducing energy use during high-cost peak hours.
Together, these programs provided 7.5 megawatts of demand reduction in 2025, helping to lower costs for all members, improve reliability, and support clean energy integration.
In 2025, 46 residential members signed up for our On-Bill Repayment program, making it easier to install high-efficiency heat pumps with little to no upfront cost. By leveraging 0% loans through the USDA and offering repayment directly on their electric bills, the program helps members improve home comfort and energy efficiency while supporting the co-op’s long-term goals of reducing peak energy demand and building a cleaner, more flexible electric grid.
Cliff swallows build their homes together, colony by colony, under the same eaves, a fitting symbol of the member-owned cooperative spirit that has always defined Holy Cross Energy.
As a cooperative, we proudly reinvest in the communities we serve. Through community giving, local partnerships, and our Community Energy Systems program, we’re proud to support local economic resilience, equity, and opportunity.
We’re also proud to go above and beyond to support our most vulnerable members. Member contributions through the Round-Up Foundation provide direct funding to local community members in need and the nonprofits that serve them, while programs like Sustainable Solar and income-qualified energy assistance expand access to affordable energy for all members.
Our Community Energy Systems program awards in-kind support for projects that offer significant community benefits and advance our vision of a responsible transition to a clean energy future. We proudly supported the Town of Avon’s new all-electric public works garage, which opened in October 2025 with 24 kilowatts of rooftop solar, 30 kilowatts of battery energy storage, and an electric heating system.
Beavers are nature’s most industrious engineers, transforming landscapes through skill and teamwork. That’s exactly the kind of dedicated, resourceful workforce that powers our mission.
Holy Cross Energy’s success is powered by our people. In 2025, we continued our commitment to being an exceptional local employer of choice, grounded in the belief that engaged, supported employees deliver better service to our members.
The cooperative promotes Leadership at AllLevels, empowering employees across operations, engineering, member services, billing, accounting, and community relations.
Local hiring, workforce development partnerships, and a focus on safety and well‑being help ensure we reflect our communities and serve them with pride.
When you call us during business hours, you’ll always be able to talk to a real, live, local person!
Our employees are encouraged to give back to the communities we serve through paid volunteer time and organized group service days throughout the year. We regularly partner with local organizations including Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers, Eagle Valley Community Market, Roundup River Ranch, and more, supporting community projects while strengthening the cooperative connections that power our region.
We have a strong commitment to maintaining the financial integrity and strength of our rural electric cooperative, in a way that balances affordable rates, reliable and safe electric service, and the transition to clean energy.
Ingresos operativos: $
Residential Sales: 84,726,208
Commercial Sales: 60,968,089
Public Lighting: 119,662
Other Electric Revenue: 16,422,529
Total Operating Revenue: $162,236,488
Operating Expenses — $
Power Supply: 73,538,746
Transmission: 5,439,666
Distribution: 21,056,812
Member Service: 7,197,570
Administrative: 19,102,778
Depreciation & Interest: 25,349,564
Total Operating Expenses: $151,685,136
Márgenes — $
Net Operating Margins: 10,551,351
Ohter Margins: 2,393,174
Total Margins: $112,944,525
