Proper now, Xcel Power’s draft Electrical Useful resource Plan is below assessment by the Colorado Public Utilities Fee (PUC). This plan will decide how the state’s largest utility will present electrical energy to Colorado communities between now and 2050. Final week, only one week earlier than the PUC was set to listen to from Coloradans on the proposed plan in a public listening to, Xcel Power proposed some costly adjustments as a part of a settlement made behind closed doorways with the Colorado Oil & Fuel Affiliation, State companies, and metropolis representatives.
Xcel’s proposed plan is a company giveaway that’s unhealthy for our local weather and unfair to Xcel clients. It permits Xcel to proceed its dependence on soiled, costly fossil fuels, and additional delay the transition to reasonably priced clear power. If the plan had been to cross as is, Xcel’s clients could be compelled to pay extra for electrical energy to learn Xcel shareholders — whereas persevering with to must endure the well being issues stemming from fossil gas air pollution. This winter, the PUC has the chance to reject or considerably alter the settlement to guard Coloradans.
Right here’s what it’s essential know in regards to the proposal:
- It permits Xcel Power to burn coal for much too lengthy, which might impose pointless prices on its clients:
The settlement would require the Comanche 3 coal plant to burn coal till 2035– 5 years longer than every other coal plant in Colorado. The Comanche 3 coal plant is essentially the most unreliable energy plant within the state, and has been stricken by operational issues, together with being offline for practically all of 2020 due to poor upkeep practices. Why ought to Comanche 3, the least dependable of Xcel’s energy vegetation, run longer than every other coal unit in Colorado?
Moreover, the coal plant is the biggest supply of local weather air pollution within the state and is situated in Pueblo, a low-income, Latino group. This group doesn’t even get the electrical energy from the plant — simply the air pollution. When the PUC held a listening to in Pueblo in October 2021, residents expressed overwhelming help for retiring the coal plant by 2030 on the newest.
The settlement additionally permits Xcel to proceed to make use of its different coal units–Pawnee, Craig, and Hayden–when they don’t seem to be financial to take action, thereby rising prices and dangerous air pollution. Xcel makes use of a apply known as “must-run designations”, during which coal models are required to function even when they don’t seem to be financial to function. The settlement permits Xcel to proceed to make use of this reckless apply for the Pawnee, Craig, and Hayden coal units–even although Xcel commits to ending this mindless apply at Comanche 3.
- It helps Xcel Power make its shareholders wealthy on the backs of Colorado ratepayers:
The settlement ensures Xcel value restoration for all the remaining steadiness of the Comanche 3 coal plant when it retires on the finish of 2034. Xcel estimates the undepreciated steadiness (ie, the prices that clients haven’t but paid) on the coal plant will nonetheless be $658 million at the moment. So Xcel clients shall be on the hook to pay Xcel $658 million for Xcel’s unhealthy enterprise selections and mismanagement of Comanche 3 even after it retires.
The settlement additionally ensures Xcel at the least $626 million in new company-owned electrical era assets to switch the Comanche 3 coal plant after 2035. The extra assets Xcel builds and owns, corresponding to new wind generators, photo voltaic panels, or gasoline vegetation, the more cash their shareholders make. Sometimes, Xcel has to have interaction in what’s known as an open supply solicitation course of that enables non-public corporations to bid into with proposals. This course of forces Xcel, a monopoly, to compete towards non-public corporations to construct new energy vegetation. The results of this competitors is decrease costs for clear power, which permits us to transition away from fossil fuels extra affordably than if Xcel is allowed to exclude rivals. Sadly, the settlement mandates that Xcel will get to personal at the least $626 million price of those alternative resources–a big loss for Xcel clients who may lower your expenses with a good solicitation course of that ensures clients are getting the very best deal potential.
- It may end in new gasoline vegetation that burn gasoline for many years to return:
The settlement permits Xcel to construct new gasoline vegetation and burn gasoline at them for so long as they need by assuming that new gasoline vegetation will run for at the least 40 years — lengthy after 2050, the date by which Xcel says it’s aiming to be carbon-free. Permitting Xcel to construct new gasoline vegetation will solely make it tougher for Colorado cities like Denver and Boulder to achieve their objectives of working on one hundred pc renewable power by 2030, and can make it tougher to realize Governor Polis’ aim of 100% renewable power in Colorado by 2040.
This settlement proposal is only one of many choices in entrance of the PUC proper now concerning Xcel’s power future. Notably, nobody has modeled the client prices or air pollution related to 2035 retirement of Comanche 3 and different provisions of the settlement. We don’t know precisely how a lot this backroom deal would value Coloradans — financially or when it comes to their well being — however we do know that Xcel shall be assured a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of fee restoration and new investments to line shareholder pockets.
Colorado ought to demand extra from Xcel, which is a legally protected monopoly. That is the PUC’s probability to require Xcel to do its half to fight the local weather disaster by cleansing up its power portfolio and delivering Coloradans with low-cost renewable power and storage options.
For those who’re interested by making your voice heard on this problem, you may signal as much as give a verbal public remark to the PUC on December 2 HERE or submit a written public remark to the PUC HERE.