For nearly half a century, a stretch of land northeast of Keenesburg has been tied to the energy needed to run the Coors Brewery in Golden.
First, Coors dug coal out of it. Then the company used the old mine to dispose of ash left behind from burning coal. For the past decade, much of the property has sat unused.
Now, 16,000 solar panels are returning the former mine to energy production, this time without anything being pulled from the ground.
Molson Coors is developing a roughly 47-acre solar farm on the former Coors coal mine about five miles northeast of Keenesburg. The project is expected to generate about 7.2 megawatts of electricity and provide the equivalent of roughly 7% of the annual electricity used by the company's Golden Valley operations, according to Molson Coors representatives who discussed the project this week.
The project is expected to begin operating by the end of 2026.
Coors purchased and developed the Keenesburg property as a coal mine in 1979 and continued mining there until 1987, according to project materials submitted to Weld County. The mine's productive life was relatively short, but the property remained connected to the company's coal use for nearly three more decades.
After mining ended, the site was used to dispose of fly ash, the fine material left after coal is burned. That continued until Coors' Golden operations stopped using coal in March 2016. CBS Colorado reported that the property had largely sat unused since then.
That history makes the solar farm a particularly literal example of how Colorado's energy system has changed. The same company that once opened the land to secure a source of coal is now covering part of it with photovoltaic panels.
The relationship between Keenesburg and Golden will also continue.
Electricity produced at the solar farm will not travel through a dedicated power line directly to the brewery. Instead, the project will feed electricity into Xcel Energy's grid. Molson Coors' Golden operations draw power from that same system, allowing the company to use the Keenesburg production to offset a portion of its electricity demand through an off-site arrangement.
"This will feed directly into the Xcel grid that our Golden Valley operations pull from," Rachel Schneider, Molson Coors' vice president of sustainability, told Denver7.
Golden Valley includes more than the brewery itself. The sprawling industrial operation also includes facilities connected to packaging, distribution and other parts of beer production. Molson Coors says it has been working separately to reduce the amount of energy those facilities consume as it modernizes the Golden complex.
Adolph Coors established the brewery in Golden in 1873, building what would eventually become one of Colorado's largest and most recognizable industrial operations.
By the late 1970s, the company was developing its own coal property about 40 miles away in Weld County. The Keenesburg mine opened during a period when coal still played a much larger role in Colorado's industrial and electrical systems. More than 1,700 coal mines have operated in Colorado over the state's history.
Colorado's remaining coal industry now looks very different. The Colorado Geological Survey reported that as of 2022, coal was being mined in only five Colorado counties at six mines, all outside Weld County.
The Keenesburg property never entirely stopped being an industrial site when its mine closed. Its next use was closely connected to the coal being burned in Golden.
Fly ash is made up of fine mineral particles captured after coal combustion. Former mines have historically been among the places used for coal-combustion waste disposal. Weld County project documents say the Keenesburg site remains under active reclamation governed by state mining and environmental permits.
That makes the solar development different from building a large array on previously undisturbed farmland, an issue that has generated increasingly contentious land-use debates as utility-scale renewable projects spread across rural Colorado. At Keenesburg, the panels are being placed on property already shaped by decades of industrial use.
The project is also modest compared with some of Colorado's enormous utility-scale solar developments. Its importance to Molson Coors is more targeted. The company expects the Keenesburg array to meet the equivalent of about 7% of Golden Valley's annual electrical demand.
There could eventually be more, as Molson Coors owns additional land around the property that could potentially accommodate future solar development.
For Weld County, the project adds another energy source to a region already defined by energy production. The county remains the center of Colorado's oil and natural gas industry, while also hosting wind, solar and other electrical infrastructure.
State Rep. Carlos Barron, a Republican whose district includes part of Weld County, pointed to that mix while touring the project this week, saying the county increasingly produces energy from several different sources.
The Keenesburg site offers an unusually compact timeline of that transition. Coal began coming out of the ground there in 1979. Mining ended eight years later. Coal ash continued going back into the property until 2016. Now, nearly 50 years after Coors first developed the site for energy, thousands of solar panels are now pointing at the sky.
About the Author: Alex Delia
Vote Results > Archives >
© 2026 LongmontLeader

source