 |
| Is Xcel Just Speculating on Our Backs? |
It's current proposal to build long-distance, extra-high voltage lines from Brush, Colorado to Daniels Park, according to Xcel's project website, is:
“part of the company’s Senate Bill 07-100 portfolio of transmission plans and is a critical component of the Colorado long-range transmission plan. The project will allow for the interconnection and delivery of new generation resources, including renewable energy to Front Range customers to meet new load growth and improve system reliability.”
Sounds convincing, doesn't it? Until you look at what Xcel tried to do in Southern Colorado. Here's what that project website claimed:
It was “needed to meet the challenges identified by the Colorado General Assembly, the Governor's Energy Office, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, and numerous stakeholders. The project is essential to meeting Colorado's goals of clean, reliable, affordable, and secure electrical power now and in the future.
It sounds the same: Government demands! Essential/Critical! Clean/Renewable Energy! Reliability! New Load Growth/The Future!
It's the same excuses. Why do we say “excuses”? Read on to see what happened when the PUC suggested that Xcel should bear some of the risk if the project didn't live up to Xcel predictions:
We quote from website smartvalleyenergy.com:
Xcel Threatens to Walk Away from Transmission Line
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
Xcel has recently threatened to walk away from the Southern Colorado Transmission Line Project if the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) doesn’t give-in to their demands to put public money – and only public money – at risk in the project.
Who is regulating whom?
The PUC will soon decide whether to approve a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) application for the transmission line project. In her recommended decision to the PUC, the Administrative Law Judge placed a condition for the CPCN that . . . puts some investment risk on the utility, rather than on ratepayers who have no say in whether or not the line is built. In fact, this condition should be even stronger and provide more protection to ratepayers from abuse by Xcel.
Parties in the case filed responses late last week.
Xcel’s response? “If the Commission does not remove this condition, Public Service will be forced to withdraw from this Project.” That is quite a threat.
Xcel had the audacity to go on in their response and state that,“it would be irresponsible for an investor-owned utility to put shareholder funds at risk…” Xcel is happy to rake-in hundreds of millions of dollars from ratepayers as long as its shareholders’ money is not at risk.
In another recent PUC filing, the PUC’s own staff complained about Xcel’s many attempts to improperly control the Commissioners: “Staff is troubled by what has become an all too familiar theme of [Xcel] that the sky is falling and urgency prevents [Xcel's] proposed actions from being properly vetted and approved” by the Commissioners. Staff asked, “…who is in charge in Colorado, the utility or the Commission.”
The Denver Post reported,Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
Xcel has recently threatened to walk away from the Southern Colorado Transmission Line Project if the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) doesn’t give-in to their demands to put public money – and only public money – at risk in the project.
Who is regulating whom?
The PUC will soon decide whether to approve a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) application for the transmission line project. In her recommended decision to the PUC, the Administrative Law Judge placed a condition for the CPCN that . . . puts some investment risk on the utility, rather than on ratepayers who have no say in whether or not the line is built. In fact, this condition should be even stronger and provide more protection to ratepayers from abuse by Xcel.
Parties in the case filed responses late last week.
Xcel’s response? “If the Commission does not remove this condition, Public Service will be forced to withdraw from this Project.” That is quite a threat.
Xcel had the audacity to go on in their response and state that,“it would be irresponsible for an investor-owned utility to put shareholder funds at risk…” Xcel is happy to rake-in hundreds of millions of dollars from ratepayers as long as its shareholders’ money is not at risk.
In another recent PUC filing, the PUC’s own staff complained about Xcel’s many attempts to improperly control the Commissioners: “Staff is troubled by what has become an all too familiar theme of [Xcel] that the sky is falling and urgency prevents [Xcel's] proposed actions from being properly vetted and approved” by the Commissioners. Staff asked, “…who is in charge in Colorado, the utility or the Commission.”
Xcel Energy has threatened to drop plans for a controversial transmission line that it seeks to build in southern Colorado because of regulatory conditions that might be imposed on the project.
In a filing this week with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, Xcel took issue with an administrative law judge's recommendation that Xcel face financial sanctions unless it keeps the $180 million line supplied with large amounts of power.
...The line is intended to help carry power from solar-energy generating stations in the San Luis Valley to Colorado's Front Range and other population centers.
Xcel said its main concern is a provision that would require it to refund 50 percent of the development costs it collects from ratepayers if the transmission line fails to carry at least 700 megawatts of power within 10 years of completion.
In its filing, Xcel said the power requirement "is clearly not in the public interest" and is "arbitrary and unreasonable."
In a filing this week with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, Xcel took issue with an administrative law judge's recommendation that Xcel face financial sanctions unless it keeps the $180 million line supplied with large amounts of power.
...The line is intended to help carry power from solar-energy generating stations in the San Luis Valley to Colorado's Front Range and other population centers.
Xcel said its main concern is a provision that would require it to refund 50 percent of the development costs it collects from ratepayers if the transmission line fails to carry at least 700 megawatts of power within 10 years of completion.
In its filing, Xcel said the power requirement "is clearly not in the public interest" and is "arbitrary and unreasonable."
Xcel eventually pulled out of the project.
Is the Pawnee-Daniels Park project just the same—a speculative effort to keep control of energy along the front range, at a time when market forces and technology are moving in other directions? Is this just speculation on the backs of rate payers (raise their rates) for the benefit of Xcel shareholders? As they say, "Follow the money."
We make the same point folks in Southern Colorado made: “We shouldn’t have to foot the bill for an overbuilt, overpriced, unnecessary project.”
No comments:
Post a Comment