The numbers are in, and they aren’t pretty. Four of the largest cost driving pieces of legislation enabling Colorado’s New Energy Economy cost Xcel Energy ratepayers nearly half a billion dollars in 2012 alone. Adding insult to injury, some of the electricity produced wasn’t needed in the first place according to a just released report from the Independence Institute’s energy policy analyst William Yeatman. So Xcel ratepayers paid handsomely for electricity that ended up as surplus.

Using Xcel’s regulatory filings Yeatman determined:

In 2012, the New Energy Economy cost Xcel ratepayers $484 million – more than 18 percent of Xcel’s total electricity sales. Based on 1.4 million ratepayers, the New Energy Economy cost $345 per ratepayer in 2012.

Due to a depressed economy, there is an oversupply of electricity generation onXcel’s system, which means Xcel ratepayers spent $484 million on the New Energy Economy in 2012 in order to obtain electricity that they did not need

Yeatman also breaks down the cost by each of the four pieces of legislation, which includes the renewable energy mandate and its massive $343,000,000 cost. It’s clear that State Representative Max Tyler’s and former Governor Bill Ritter’s fanciful promise of a two percent rate cap is much different in reality.

Prior to the New Energy Economy, Colorado worked on a least cost principle meaning utilities were to deliver reliable power to ratepayers in the most cost effective manner. When it comes to renewable mandates and the New Energy Economy, state lawmakers would be wise to remember economist Milton Friedman’s words, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”