Remote hydroelectric plant marks 100 years of quietly powering Colorado Springs with mountain water
Christian Murdock, The Gazette
RUXTON PARK — At this point 100 years ago, the Ruxton Hydroelectric Plant was being built on the side of a mountain west of Manitou Springs. Today, the plant is still operating and turning water from the Rocky Mountains into a small portion of Colorado Springs’ power.
Colorado Springs Utilities led a tour of elected officials, Utilities staff and media members to the remote plant Friday morning to mark the anniversary. The visitors hopped off the Pikes Peak Cog Railway halfway up the tracks where it passes next to the small power station.
The Ruxton power plant opened in November 1925. A sign painted on the stone wall above the front door labels it as “Municipal Plant No. 3.” The first two were Manitou Hydroelectric and Martin Drake Power Plant, which was designed by the same engineers as Ruxton.
Colorado Springs councilmember Kimberly Gold looks out over Lake Moraine with the summit of 14,115-foot Pikes Peak in the background on Friday while touring the Ruxton Hydroelectric Plant. The lake feeds the 100-year-old power plant, two miles below.
Chris Thompson, hydroelectric plant manager for Colorado Springs Utilities, said the Ruxton plant came about when Utilities was expanding its power facilities across the region at the time. In 1924, the utility began building a pipeline from Lake Moraine down to the Ruxton plant, where water then flowed down to Manitou and Colorado Springs.
Ruxton was originally built to be fully automated and remotely managed, an extremely rare challenge in the 1920s. Thompson said it was likely built that way because of the remoteness of the facility, which requires nearly a two-hour drive from Colorado Springs through the mountains or cooperation with the Cog Railway.
Power lines would transmit signals from the Manitou Hydroelectric Plant up to Ruxton to turn on the turbines, adjust the power load and turn it off again.
“There were lessons from this plant that were used all over the world,” Thompson said.
The original switchboards and dials that automated the plant still stand in the building, right next to the computer bank that operates the turbines. The original Pelton turbine continues to spin, though its analog temperature gauges have been replaced by digital readers.
Colorado Springs councilmember David Lenweber looks at the modern automatic switchboard inside the Ruxon Hydroelectric Plant on Pikes Peak on Friday during a tour of the 100-year-old plant. The original automatic switchboard still stands to the left of the new one and was the first of its kind in the world when the plant opened in 1925.
“We have a lot of other projects working on infrastructure across the city. That is what it takes to be good stewards of facilities that can last 100 years,” Colorado Springs City Councilmember and Utilities Board Chairman Dave Donelson said.
In 1930, the plant moved away from automation and employed caretakers to oversee the equipment while it operated during the summer. The caretakers lived in a simple white house a few hundred feet away from the power plant. Some caretakers embraced the isolation and returned every summer for years, while others couldn’t last a week.
People on the tour of the 100-year-old Ruxton Hydroelectric Plant explore the caretaker’s home on Friday on Pikes Peak. A caretaker lived in the home until 2013.
Staff lived onsite to manage Ruxton for more than 80 years until 2013, when Utilities converted the plant back to a more modernized form of automation.
The water flowing through Ruxton on Friday morning generated just over 300 kilowatts of power. Even at its maximum capacity of one megawatt, the power output is dwarfed by facilities like the Tesla Hydroelectric Plant near the Air Force Academy, which can provide up to 28 megawatts, and the Ray Nixon Power Plant, which has a capacity of more than 250 megawatts.
The remote plant has remained in use over the years because of its location in the water network. The Ruxton Plant connects the water supplies from reservoirs throughout the South Slope to Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs. Thompson said that the water pressure needed to be reduced at some point before it reached the distribution centers.
“We have quite a bit of water and a lot of elevation drop,” Thompson said. “If we’re going to move that water and get its pressure down, we might as well put it through a turbine and make some megawatts.”
Around 7% of the total power used by Colorado Springs Utilities comes from hydroelectric power plants. Utilities CEO Travas Deal said there weren’t any clear ways to add more hydroelectric power in the region unless technology improved.