Join us on Thursday, August 7, to rally against rate increases and prevent Xcel from sinking its fangs any further into your finances!

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission is reviewing a plan by Xcel Energy to dramatically build out its fleet of power plants and generating capacity. If left unchecked, Xcel’s plan could spike residential utility rates almost 50% in the next six years. Meanwhile, as it stands, the data centers and large industrial users driving most of the growth would see hardly any increase in their rates at all. Help us tell the PUC to use its authority to rein in this beast before it digs deeper into your wallets

RATEPAYER RALLY - TALKING POINTS

  1. The PUC must ensure that customers are only being billed for energy that is reasonably priced and delivered to us safely, reliably and cost effectively, and without waste. Customers should be protected from needing to pay for any unnecessary expenses and risky ideas being proposed by Xcel, including a massive expansion to power uncertain demand from speculative data centers.

  2. The PUC should require Xcel to cut waste and maximize efficiencies, to build only what we really need, to assure that proposed technologies are clean and safe, and to avoid billing customers for risky investments.

  3. Xcel's proposal asks the PUC for approval to build up to 14 times the generating capacity of its retiring coal plants, largely to meet projected demand from data centers and other large, commercial customers. However, to pay for this increased capacity, Xcel's own data indicates that residential rates could spike nearly 50% in the next six years if the plan is approved, while rates for data center developers and other large commercial and industrial users will stay flat.

  4. There’s no guarantee the increase in energy demand fueled by data centers will be as big as projected. In fact, history shows we’ve overestimated energy growth many times. We can make decisions today that can alter that future. Conservation and investments in energy efficiency could significantly cut energy demand.

  5. Overestimating future demand may delay the pace of transitioning to clean, renewable wind and solar power. Unless the PUC acts to control rampant imprudent growth, Coloradans could be forced to pay for new gas power plants, an idea that Xcel included in its transition proposal. That’s a problem when parts of Colorado suffer dozens of dirty ozone days each summer and the whole state is experiencing more extreme weather exacerbated by fossil fuel emissions.

  6. Meeting new demand for electricity by building new gas plants makes consumers vulnerable to gas price volatility, compared to renewables, which are powered by free wind and solar.

  7. Xcel’s is asking the PUC to authorize creation a Carbon Free Future Development (CFFD) fund that would allow the company to bill customers for funds used on new and experimental technologies – most with a track record of higher costs. Xcel's initial proposal asked the PUC to allow it to charge customers $100 million, but now the company has proposed removing the cost cap altogether. The PUC should not allow Xcel to bill customers for this risky proposal at any level.

  8. Xcel’s has proposed a Strategic Resilience Reserve Fund (SRRF) that would allow it to collect up to $500 million from customers to pre-purchase equipment, such as gas turbines, before the company knows whether it is even needed or will ever be used. And if it is never used and then sold at a premium, Xcel shareholders would be able to collect half the profit without having risked a dime of their money. The PUC should apply stringent requirements to rein in this outrageous request . At the very least, the PUC should reject Xcel’s proposal to share profits from the sale of any customer-funded equipment with investors.