The following is a transcript of the Jan. 27, 2025, episode of Public Power Now. Learn more about subscribing to Public Power Now at Publicpower.org/Podcasts. Some quotes may have been edited for clarity.
Paul Ciampoli
Welcome to the latest episode of Public Power Now. I'm Paul Ciampoli, APPA’s News Director.
Our guest on this episode is Travis Hunter, who in late 2024 was appointed to the new position of chief generation and transmission officer by the Platte River Power Authority following an internal restructuring process at the Colorado-based joint action agency. Platte River Power Authority generates and delivers energy and services to Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland, Colorado, for delivery to their utility customers.
Travis, thanks for joining us as a guest on the podcast.
Travis, one of the things that struck me as I was preparing for this interview is the fact that you've worked at Platte River Power Authority since 1998. So I wanted to give you the opportunity to provide an overview of your career at Platte River Power Authority.
Travis Hunter
I started at Platte River in April of 1998. I was actually hired as a welder mechanic, so that was my first job. I am a welder by trade. Platte River was looking for a high-pressure welder at that time and I was fortunate enough to get my foot in the door at Platte River. I was in that role for probably 9 or 10 years when a maintenance planner position came open -- worked in that role, planning for maintenance department -- that was a a short term job.
I was probably only in that role for about 6 months and then I was moved over to maintenance supervisor at that time. Basically, I just did a swap between me and another supervisor and put me in the supervisor role and moved the other employee to the planner role.
So that's how I got my foot in the door in a leadership role. I was in that role for probably five years and then moved into our instrumentation and electrical department as their supervisor.
I did not have any experience in instrumentation or electrical, so I was getting out of my comfort zone and taking on a role that I knew nothing about. I knew the guys within the department, but as far as what they did on a day-to-day basis, I really had no clue what they were doing. I certainly learned a lot in that role. I learned different ways to troubleshoot, different ways of thinking...just learning a whole different side of the generation process being in that role. From there, I moved into a maintenance manager role...I was over mechanical maintenance and the I&E group.
I also planned the major and minor outages for the plant, so learning from what I what I learned as a supervisor in both the maintenance and I&E roles helped me step into that role and be a lot more comfortable with knowing more of the plants since I had supervised the mechanical and I&E departments.
I was in the maintenance manager role for probably little under five years when I accepted the role as plant manager, so being over the whole plant, I got to learn more about the operation side of things, the engineering, the capital projects, things of that nature. So I had a broad run coming into the new role I'm in now, which has helped prove my knowledge of the organization coming into this new role.
Paul Ciampoli
I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about how your experience in a variety of roles you’ve held at Platte River Power Authority laid the groundwork for you to be successful in your new role?
Travis Hunter
Coming into this new role, I'm really comfortable with my knowledge and background with the generation side of the job With the new role, I'll also be taking over the transmission and our fiber assets as well, so that's going to be a whole new learning curve as I move through in this role. The past experiences... I’ve been able to see the bigger picture of the organization as I move from role to role -- getting the different perspectives from the different leaders that I've been able to work with as I moved up through the organization has certainly helped.
Platte River has always been an organization that has a culture of helping, learning and having those other leaders help me through the different roles that I've held has certainly helped me a lot to prepare for this role and having that overall holistic view of how the organization works will be another aspect that will help me through and being successful in this role.
Paul Ciampoli
Can you describe your role and responsibilities as chief generation and transmission officer?
Travis Hunter
As far as this role goes, my team and I are accountable for long term planning and the day-to-day operations of Platte River’s generating assets, power delivery assets, fiber assets and all the facilities that support them, including all security. Also responsible for the generation and delivery of safe, reliable and environmentally responsible electricity. This includes the infrastructure at the Rawhide Energy Station, which includes Rawhide Unit 1, which is a 280 MW coal unit and then we have five GE gas combustion turbines on site as well. On the transmission side, we have eight wholly-owned substations and then 21 other substations that we have equipment in that we operate and maintain We have approximately 815-ish miles of sub transmission lines.
And then our fiber infrastructure is a critical piece to our organization and that infrastructure supports broadband in our owner communities and then moving forward the division will be highly involved with the energy transition to meet our internal resource diversification policy.
As we transition away from more thermal resources into renewable resources, we want to be able to continue to serve safe, reliable and environmentally responsible energy. That's going to be new to Platte River. We're kind of flipping the organization 180 compared to what we've done over the last 50 years and so we're going to have to really look at how we do business moving forward with new assets and especially when we join the SPP RTO in April of 2026.
Paul Ciampoli
In my role as news director of APPA and being in charge of our newsletter, I've written a lot of stories about Platte River and all the projects you guys are involved in. So I wanted to give you -- against that backdrop -- an opportunity to highlight any recently completed or ongoing projects at Platte River Power Authority.
Travis Hunter
One of the bigger projects that is coming near to completion is a substation project called the Severance Substation. This project is being built to accommodate a little over 250 megawatts of solar energy that Platte River will be getting through a purchase power agreement. And what also is in the works for that substation is a 100 MW, four hour battery project that will be interconnected through that same substation.
The substation was designed to accommodate and is strategically located for future expansion of renewables in that area. We're probably about a month, month and a half away from getting that substation fully online.
Parts of the substation [are] currently hot though we’re waiting on the solar project to get completed before we energize the rest of it. [There has] been a lot of coordination through internal employees and through the organization that's building the solar project, so we're really looking forward to having that project online and start to get the energy from that solar project.
The next one I wanted to talk about was a new generation project that we have in store. Platte River will be constructing fived GE LM6000 aero derivative turbines at the Rawhide Energy Station and this will support the intermittency of the significant amount of renewables that we will be adding to our system. And it will somewhat replace the energy after Rawhide Unit 1 is retired at the end of 2029. This project will help with the reliability as Platte River brings on more renewable resources. And then transitioning from coal as a baseload to wind and solar comes with unique challenges and we're trying to meet the three-pronged approach of battery storage, VPP and thermal dispatchable capacity. We're looking to have that project commercial in Q1 of 2028. We'll start breaking ground -- probably Q1 of 2026, so about a two-year long construction project. I
t's important for Platte River to continue to provide electricity that is seamlessly reliable to our owner communities as we move through this energy transition.
The last project I want to talk about is the Platte River transition plan for employees. As we move through this energy transition, it's been very clear by Platte River leadership that we're not going to be leaving any employee behind, so it's important to take care of our employees and make sure that they are recognized as our number one asset just as we support our owner communities is at the heart of what we do, ensuring that we have a solid plan for our employees during this transition is a project that is important to me and others throughout the organization and building a solid workforce transformation program will be a major focus of mine and for others throughout the organization over the next few years.
Paul Ciampoli
Thanks again so much for taking the time to speak with us and I would love to have you back at some point in the future. We could probably at a minimum pick up where we left off in terms of some of the projects that you just discussed to get an update on those and other projects.
Travis Hunter
Yeah, that'd be great.
Paul Ciampoli
Thanks for listening to this episode of Public Power Now, which is produced by Julio Guerrero, graphic and digital designer at APPA. I'm Paul Ciampoli and we will be back next week with more from the world of public power.