Tesla Megapacks are headed to Colorado’s Front Range. Madison Energy Infrastructure said Monday, Oct. 26, it will build a 50-megawatt, 200-megawatt-hour battery portfolio for CORE Electric Cooperative across three Colorado sites, all running on Tesla Megapack hardware, with commercial operation targeted by September 2027.
The announcement calls it Madison’s largest distributed storage deployment so far. The more interesting line for Tesla watchers is the one after that: the CORE sites are “among the first” projects supported by Madison’s $50 million agreement with Tesla. In other words, this is not a one-off purchase order. It’s the first draw on a supply deal, and Madison has said it wants to build a lot more.
A co-op with 375,000 people and a peak problem
CORE is a member-owned utility covering a 5,000-square-mile territory in central Colorado, serving more than 375,000 residents along the Front Range. That makes it one of the largest electric cooperatives in the U.S. Its pitch for batteries is practical, not poetic. “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, adding that the projects are now moving “from planning into construction.”
The math is simple. At 50 MW of power and 200 MWh of energy, the batteries can discharge at full output for four hours, which is what a utility wants for the evening peak, when solar fades and everyone gets home and turns things on. The Duck Curve points out the release doesn’t name the three sites or put a price on the contracts, so don’t expect a ribbon-cutting map just yet.
Madison isn’t a newcomer to this deal. When it launched its “Community Infrastructure” initiative on Sept. 18, a plan to add 1 GW of distributed energy capacity by 2028 and mobilize up to $2 billion, the first project it listed was 50 MW of standalone storage with CORE. Monday’s release filled in the energy rating, the site count, the date and the hardware: Tesla. Madison is backed by EQT, and CEO Richard Walsh frames the whole program as a way to add local capacity as data centers and new factories pile onto the grid.
Colorado is quietly becoming Megapack country
This is the second 200 MWh Megapack project in Colorado in two months. In September, developer Cloudbreak Energy said it was moving ahead with the Pueblo Battery Resource, a 50 MW, four-hour system at Black Hills Energy’s Pueblo Airport Generating Station. That one uses 50 Tesla Megapacks, with Linxon handling the balance of plant, and it’s due in service in late 2027. Put the two side by side and Colorado is lining up roughly 400 MWh of Tesla storage, all due online in the second half of 2027.
(Fun detail on the Pueblo project: the batteries sit at a gas plant. Same site, new tenant, and the new tenant doesn’t need fuel deliveries.)
For Tesla, deals like this are the steady side of the business. In its Q3 2026 results, Tesla said energy storage had its highest-ever order rate and backlog, with 13.7 GWh deployed in the quarter and Megapack 3 production started at Megafactory Texas. A 200 MWh co-op portfolio is a rounding error against 13.7 GWh. But it’s the kind of order that keeps coming, from utilities that don’t make headlines, through partners like Madison that have signed up to buy in bulk.
It also fits the pattern on our Energy page lately. Taiwan’s Apollo Power ordered 1 GWh of Megapacks this month to feed AI-era power demand, and Tesla’s Project Crystal Sun solar factory just cleared its Texas incentives. Same story every time: the grid needs capacity faster than it can build power plants, and a fenced lot full of white boxes is the quickest fix on offer.
Drive Tesla Canada and North American Clean Energy both carried the deal on Monday. Next milestone: construction updates on the three CORE sites, and whatever Madison does with the rest of that $50 million Tesla agreement.
Lester’s take
I’m on my fourth Tesla in five years, and I’ve noticed that every Tesla earnings deck eventually gets to the Megapack slide. Nobody screams for it the way they scream for a Roadster with thrusters, but this is the part of Tesla that keeps the lights on, literally, for 375,000 people in Colorado. Four hours at full blast, every evening, with no drama. My one complaint: Colorado now gets two 200 MWh Megapack farms, and I’m still waiting for FSD in Japan, after buying it on all four of my Teslas. I’d happily trade a few Megapacks for a single FSD approval here. Tesla Japan, you know where to find me.
Sources: Madison Energy Infrastructure / PR Newswire, Drive Tesla Canada, North American Clean Energy, The Duck Curve, Madison (Sept. 18 initiative), Cloudbreak Energy, Tesla Q3 2026 Update. Not a Tesla App had not covered the CORE deal at press time.
— Lester Miyashiro, EVX News
Featured image: Tesla Megapacks beside a solar farm, from Tesla’s official X post on utility-scale storage (not one of the Colorado sites). Image: Tesla on X (cropped).