In 1906, under a big top tent, spectators, buyers and sellers flocked to the first official Western Livestock Show in Denver, Colorado. For over a decade prior, trains filled with cattle, sheep and swine had rolled into the site to be sold and traded in the active marketplace. It was an epicenter of trade that brought the agricultural powerhouse of Colorado ranches and farms into the urban core.

That connection between rural Colorado and the city of Denver has continued to this day. The National Western Center is a year-round destination focused on the future of food, agriculture and sustainability, built on the legacy of the National Western Stock Show. The center plays a vital role in connecting populations across Colorado, which is essential for sharing knowledge, technology and resources effectively.

“Just because we draw boundaries around an urban center doesn't mean that is a thing people can't walk across or step across or learn across or share across," said Brad Buchanan, CEO of the National Western Center. "We have so much to learn from each other. . . . The National Western Center is about building those relationships to ensure that happens for coming generations."

Which is why maintaining its urban location became a critical joint effort in 2012, when the National Western Stock Show was considering relocating outside of the City and County of Denver.

With the help of campus partners like Colorado State University and in collaboration with Xcel Energy, the office of then mayor Michael Hancock and the National Western Center developed a master plan for the next chapter of the Colorado institution. The plan was approved in 2015 and overwhelmingly approved by Denver voters.

"The new National Western Center campus is a once-in-a-generational opportunity to build a sustainable and resilient campus for the next a hundred years,” said Mike Bouchard, the executive director of the Mayor's Office of the National Western Center. “And to find every opportunity to build in sustainable features into this campus was our mandate from the beginning."

Sustainable and resilient

Sustainability was a foundational principle integrated into every aspect of the new campus design and construction — and so was resiliency.

“Sustainability and resiliency are partners,” said Buchanan. “They are hand in hand, right? Sustainability is about thinking about how we do things forever. Resiliency is what we do when there's a challenge.”

To meet those twin goals of sustainability and resiliency, the National Western Center brought in Xcel Energy to help set ambitious benchmarks and make this a model for other new construction in the City and County of Denver. In addition to all buildings on campus being LEED Gold certified, an innovative and large-scale sewer heat recovery program was developed to capture heat from wastewater to provide heating and cooling for over a million square feet of new buildings.

The District Energy System at the National Western Center campus is the largest sewer heat recovery system in North America. Rather than burning fossil fuels, the campus will source nearly 90% of its heating and cooling from thermal energy via a sewer pipeline that runs through the site. Xcel Energy joined other organizations in studying the proposed system and ultimately helped determine its feasibility.

The campus also features community solar gardens, and through Xcel Energy's Solar Rewards Community program, the energy generated is distributed to help offset energy bills for residents in Denver's most underserved communities.

To maximize resiliency, a microgrid was developed in partnership with Xcel Energy to provide backup power, ensuring the campus could remain operational and serve as a place of refuge for the community during emergencies.

“Every single decision we make on this campus is through the lens of how it can benefit community,” said Buchanan. “Xcel [Energy] shares that value and priority, and so all these incredible projects that we're getting done in partnership with Xcel [Energy] benefit community.”

A microgrid with big impact

“The best way to think about a microgrid is think about how an overall grid works,” said Jonathan Moe, an Xcel Energy engineer and project manager in Distribution Operations who helped build the compound at the National Western Center. “On a normal grid, you have a power plant, wires that transmit power and a customer at the end that uses that power. A microgrid does the same thing, but on a smaller scale. In this case, our power plant is the five large battery cubes.”

In the case of a prolonged power outage, the battery-powered microgrid will turn on to help maintain critical services to the National Western Center. The battery system also plays a crucial daily role in environmental sustainability by storing solar energy and discharging it during peak times to reduce the grid's reliance on fossil fuels and lower carbon emissions.

The microgrid compound on the National Western Center campus is a modestly sized, unassuming building. But it packs a lot of power — and a lot of potential for future technological advancement.

"The most amazing thing about these projects is this technology that we are learning about is really at the forefront of what the industry is doing,” said Moe. “And the lessons that we're learning here, we're applying to bigger and bigger battery fields. So, it's really going to allow us to make that 100% renewable goal."

Collaborating for Colorado

The sheer scale of the National Western Center’s overhaul is a testament to extensive collaboration at every level, from government partners at the mayor’s office, to the students of Colorado State University who studied the District Energy System, to the experts at Xcel Energy who built a microgrid, connected the solar garden and guided throughout the planning and construction process.

“Partnering with Xcel Energy on this project is mandatory because without Xcel [Energy] as a partner right from the start all the way through implementation, these incredible projects don't get done,” said Buchanan. “The community solar garden doesn't get done; the battery backup doesn't get done. And these things are all seemingly initially impossible to do. We get impossible things done and we get it done partnering with Xcel [Energy].”