Through 2020, Xcel projects energy sales to increase an average of 1.1 percent annually, but it projects sales revenue to increase 4.7 percent annually, according to its 2009 Renewable Electricity Standard compliance plan.

Why would revenue outpace sales by such a significant margin? The answer, of course, is that green energy costs more than conventional energy, and ex-Governor Bill Ritter’s New Energy Economy locked Colorado into a decade of green expensive energy growth.

William Yeatman is an energy policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute