Madison and CORE Electric plan 200 MWh of batteries at three Colorado sites

Madison Energy Infrastructure will deploy a 50 MW / 200 MWh battery portfolio with CORE Electric Cooperative across three sites in Colorado, Madison announced on October 26, 2026, with commercial operations expected to begin by September 2027. Madison calls it its largest distributed energy storage deployment to date. The projects will use Tesla Megapacks and are among the first supported by what Madison describes as a $50 million agreement with Tesla. By our arithmetic, 200 MWh at 50 MW is four hours of discharge at full output (power versus energy).

The batteries will support CORE's distribution system, adding capacity for demand growth that the release attributes to new development and broader economic expansion. CORE, a member-owned utility covering 5,000 square miles of central Colorado and, by its count, more than 375,000 residents along the Front Range, frames the project in peak-hour terms. "As electricity demand grows, this storage will help us manage peak demand, control power costs, and maintain reliable service," said Chris Hildred, CORE's chief energy supply officer, who said the projects are moving from planning into construction. The release does not name the three sites or put a price on the contracts.

The partnership itself was already public. When Madison launched its 1 GW Community Infrastructure initiative on September 18, 2026, a plan to add 1 GW of distributed energy capacity by 2028 to help meet AI's growing demand for power, the first project it listed as underway was "50 MW of standalone energy storage with CORE Electric Cooperative in Colorado to help the utility meet rising demand and emission reduction goals." The October release adds the energy rating, the site count, the hardware and the date. It does not mention emissions.