Energy Pipeline: Xcel Energy plans energy future with more wind, solar |


Xcel Energy plans a multifaceted change to operations that could soon significantly affect customers, offering smart-grid technology and personal choice on types of energy customers consume.

The company in late January rolled out its multi-year "Our Energy Future" plan that will usher in the latest technology and customer choice and billing in the future to align more with changing state and federal requirements on renewable energy and customer demand for renewables.

The company has already asked the Public Utilities Commission for some changes to its system, and more are expected in the future.

Xcel's "Our Energy Future" program would continue through 2024. Xcel in Colorado already has met and exceeded state requirements to have 30 percent of its energy come from renewable sources. But based on customer demand, the company has planned an additional gigawatt of wind and solar offerings by next year. The company also has planned a program called Solar Connect, which would allow customers the option of purchasing 100 percent of their electricity needs from solar.

For customers, that will mean higher costs in the future, as rates naturally increase, and customers pay additional premiums on solar and wind, and more for updated equipment.

Higher costs, however, are relative, said Alice Jackson, vice president of rates and regulatory affairs for the company's Denver offices. In the past 10 years, she said, rates haven't gone up beyond 1.9 percent per year.

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"We do not expect over the next 10 years to see anything higher than what we've seen over the past 10 years," she said. "We have 1.2 million customers, having this change-out, infrastructure that needs to be upgraded, when balance all these things, you have some costs going down and some going up, and can balance out over all of it."

Residential customers also will pay roughly $2 a month more on their bills in the coming years to help the company convert Colorado's metering system that will track customer's specific usage, such as during peak demand times. That's a cost focus groups of varying income levels agreed they would be willing to pay, Jackson said.

The technology for this "intelligent grid" and meter change has been ongoing for 10 years in places such as Texas and California.

"Now, (metering) is a blunt instrument, using tiered rates," Jackson explained. "This will be very clear, (as an example) that the hours between 2-6 p.m., if you hit your peak, it will cost you more, if you can shift something you do, like running you dryer outside of those peak periods, then you can save money. That's the control.

"It's going to make you more aware of what you're doing and how our costs are being incurred, and that will save money in long term," Jackson said.

So billing will change, starting with a base rate, and go up based on customer's picks of energy sources, plus specific usage.

Jackson said part of the "control" is customers paying for what they use, including those renewable energy options.

"To the extent the customer is asking for more, we have to make sure the costs associated with doing that are born by the customer making that choice," Jackson said. "Otherwise, if 10 percent say we want this, and that choice they're making will cost us a couple million, we can't socialize that cost to everyone."

All changes are subject to approval by the Public Utilities Commission. Xcel has already filed some requests, but more will follow through June 1, which would push projects into 2017 and beyond to develop.