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The average month-to-month residential electric bill for Xcel Energy buyers will rise a total of $1.57 over 3 years under a rate settlement filed Friday with Colorado regulators.
The 1st-year boost of 96 cents a month is far less than the month-to-month enhance of $3.96 that Xcel had requested when it filed for the rate hike in June 2014.
Coloradans can thank marijuana cultivation, in part, for the less-than-proposed improve.
Xcel is forecasting additional power sales than the utility initially predicted. A surge in marijuana cultivation is 1 of the factors that electric sales are increasing, Xcel officials stated Friday.
Cannabis growing uses substantial amounts of electricity for indoor lighting.
Xcel officials stated the greater forecast for 2015 power sales led the utility to lower its original boost for a rate hike from $137.7 million to $107 million.
Settlement negotiations with regulators and significant industrial shoppers brought a further decrease in the rate hike to a proposed $41.five million in net price increases for shoppers in 2015.
Terms of the settlement call for prices to improve an further $26.four million in 2016 &mdash an typical of 72 cents additional a month on residential bills &mdash then drop $four million, or 11 cents a month, in 2017.
The settlement's approval is pending a evaluation next month by commissioners of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. The price improve would take effect shortly right after approval.
A lot of the enhanced rates will be employed to fund energy-plant conversions mandated by the 2010 Colorado Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act. That legislation calls for Xcel and other utilities to retire some coal-fired plants and replace them with generation from cleaner-burning organic gas. The conversions will lower pollutants by an estimated 80 percent.
"Clean power is highly-priced. We've definitely discovered that," said Cindy Schonhaut, director of the Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel. "But the settlement is in the consumers' interest simply because it really significantly decreased the boost originally sought by Xcel. There will be bill impacts, but fairly smaller."
David Eves, president and chief executive of Xcel subsidiary Public Service Co. of Colorado, described the price hike as "a pretty modest price boost for consumers when you consider what they are receiving."
But utility analyst William Yeatman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market place feel tank, said Xcel customers should gird for greater fuel charges in the shift to organic gas. Alterations in Xcel's fuel expenses are passed directly to prospects, independent of base rates.
Yeatman said Xcel's natural gas fuel expenses in Colorado are about twice as high per unit of energy compared to working with coal.
http://www.uniongazette.com/local/x...price-colorado-clients-157-a-month-h9270.html
The 1st-year boost of 96 cents a month is far less than the month-to-month enhance of $3.96 that Xcel had requested when it filed for the rate hike in June 2014.
Coloradans can thank marijuana cultivation, in part, for the less-than-proposed improve.
Xcel is forecasting additional power sales than the utility initially predicted. A surge in marijuana cultivation is 1 of the factors that electric sales are increasing, Xcel officials stated Friday.
Cannabis growing uses substantial amounts of electricity for indoor lighting.
Xcel officials stated the greater forecast for 2015 power sales led the utility to lower its original boost for a rate hike from $137.7 million to $107 million.
Settlement negotiations with regulators and significant industrial shoppers brought a further decrease in the rate hike to a proposed $41.five million in net price increases for shoppers in 2015.
Terms of the settlement call for prices to improve an further $26.four million in 2016 &mdash an typical of 72 cents additional a month on residential bills &mdash then drop $four million, or 11 cents a month, in 2017.
The settlement's approval is pending a evaluation next month by commissioners of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. The price improve would take effect shortly right after approval.
A lot of the enhanced rates will be employed to fund energy-plant conversions mandated by the 2010 Colorado Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act. That legislation calls for Xcel and other utilities to retire some coal-fired plants and replace them with generation from cleaner-burning organic gas. The conversions will lower pollutants by an estimated 80 percent.
"Clean power is highly-priced. We've definitely discovered that," said Cindy Schonhaut, director of the Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel. "But the settlement is in the consumers' interest simply because it really significantly decreased the boost originally sought by Xcel. There will be bill impacts, but fairly smaller."
David Eves, president and chief executive of Xcel subsidiary Public Service Co. of Colorado, described the price hike as "a pretty modest price boost for consumers when you consider what they are receiving."
But utility analyst William Yeatman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market place feel tank, said Xcel customers should gird for greater fuel charges in the shift to organic gas. Alterations in Xcel's fuel expenses are passed directly to prospects, independent of base rates.
Yeatman said Xcel's natural gas fuel expenses in Colorado are about twice as high per unit of energy compared to working with coal.
http://www.uniongazette.com/local/x...price-colorado-clients-157-a-month-h9270.html
