While Xcel opposes a statewide feed-in-tariff program, others in the state are strong supporters of it.

Angelina Pramatarova works with Wirsol Solar, a solar integration company in Fort Collins, Colo., that is closely aligned with Abound Solar, a local solar thin-film manufacturer.

Pramatarova came to Fort Collins from Germany, which has had phenomenal success with its feed-n-tariff program. The program there made Germany, a country with a climate similar to that of Seattle, a world leader in the solar industry, she said. Forty-eight percent of the world’s solar installations are in Germany, a relatively tiny country, Pramatarova said.

She has worked with Fort Collins to prepare a community feed-in-tariff program.

“In Germany, it didn’t start overnight,” she said. “It was one city in Germany and then another started feed-in-tariffs, and it went like that until it was a national energy policy. Maybe Fort Collin can be the example, and then Colorado can lead the country.”

Mike Freeman, the chief financial officer for Fort Collins, said city leadership expects to approach elected officials with a feed-in-tariff program by the end of the month that it hopes will be implemented July 1.

Connelly said she was impressed with the work Ontario has done, but there are some major differences in Colorado. For one, most of the coal plants in Canada are publicly owned, and Bowerbank said there wasn’t a lot of resistance to shutting them down as long as the employees could be shifted to a new position in a cleaner power plant.

Colorado passed a law last year that will shut down three coal-fired plants and replace them with natural gas plants. The legislation was met with tremendous resistance and is still being fought by the privately owned coal companies and the local coal industry.

Clean energy is a new frontier. Bowerbank said that even in Canada, the industry and ideas for how to advance it are constantly evolving.

Pictured: Colorado State University's solar park, which benefits directly from Xcel's Solar Recharge program.