Xcel is getting ‘hoggy’
“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That’s rule No. 1 of business.” Mark Cuban, March 2014. Xcel Energy is […]
Colorado’s electricity rates continue to rise
By Grant Mandigora Executive Summary In 2001, Colorado electricity consumers enjoyed some of the lowest electric rates in the country. The 15 years since haven’t been so kind to ratepayers. For more than a decade, elected officials, PUC commissioners, industry and advocates have told Colorado ratepayers that they could transform the state’s electricity generation away […]
Black Hills ratepayers should direct their anger at Xcel Energy
Protests and letters to the editor show just how frustrated Pueblo ratepayers are with rising electricity bills and their service provider Black Hills Corporation. I sympathize with those ratepayers, but their anger is misdirected. The real villains are former Governor Bill Ritter and Colorado’s largest investor utility Xcel Energy. All Colorado ratepayers are paying […]
Progressive criticism of PUC nominee Vaad is about ALEC rather than energy
Progressive left logic: Progressives want to destroy ALEC. Moderate Republican PUC nominee Glenn Vaad has been a member of ALEC. Therefore progressives want to destroy Glenn Vaad even though he has supported increasing Colorado’s renewable energy mandate and fuel switching. The progressive left’s criticism of Governor John Hickenlooper’s appointment of former State Representative Glenn Vaad […]
Instability of sustainability: green agenda ignores science and technology
Could this happen in Colorado? Maybe… A Wall Street Journal article reports what some in Colorado’s energy industry know, too much reliance on wind and solar can make an electric grid unstable and lead to power outages. California regulators and energy companies met last week out of fear that the state’s electric grid is so […]
Country can breathe sigh of relief. We’re still stuck with him…
By William Yeatman and Amy Oliver Cooke As Coloradans we thought we might have to apologize to the rest of the country if President Barack Obama nominated former one-term Colorado Governor Bill Ritter to head the Energy Department. If the President wanted to make electricity costs skyrocket and the eco-left community happy, Ritter was his […]
Natural gas double price of coal in Colorado
According to the most recent Form 10-K that Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest investor owned utility (IOU), filed with the Security and Exchange Commission dated December 31, 2011, electricity generation from natural gas was more than double the price of electricity generated from coal in Colorado. A table on page 18 of the report shows that […]
Baker out at PUC
Public Utilities Commissioner Matt Baker is leaving the PUC to join the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a left-leaning non-profit, as “an officer in its Environment Program” foundation officials announced yesterday. Former Governor Bill Ritter appointed the environmental activist Baker in 2008, and his term had expired without current Governor John Hickenlooper acting to reappoint […]
Cozy relationship between Xcel and PUC?
In a surprising move to anyone who has watched the cozy relationship develop between Xcel Energy and the Public Utilities Commission, yesterday the PUC denied Xcel’s $142 million interim rate request. Colorado News Agency columnist Peter Blake (then with Face the State) initially exposed how the PUC, Xcel, and Governor Ritter’s administration colluded on the […]
Finally some outrage over the New Energy Economy
I may have underestimated the outrage over two recent Xcel Energy rate increase requests. The first, an attempt to recover the final $16.5 million in cost for Boulder’s Smart Grid City program. Ratepayers are not thrilled about paying for a Boulder project with massive cost overruns. Check out these comments: From Phil Carson, editor of […]
An 89.5 percent increase since 2004
Ho hum, Xcel Energy wants another $142 million rate increase, and it wants to recover another $16.5 million for its Boulder smart grid project. And in other news, dog bites man. If the Public Utilities Commission denied the rate increases, that would be a news story. This is all part of Colorado’s New Energy Economy. […]
Bad news for EU could be bad news for CO
Bad news for residents of the European Union and possibly Colorado. EU consumers and businesses face more than twenty years of rising electric costs as the region tries to meet its renewable energy goals according to a leaked report. The the working title of the draft report “Energy Roadmap to 2050” examines how the EU […]
