Members of New Joint Committee to Investigate Utility Rates Announced
The state has announced the official makeup of a new legislative committee dedicated to investigating rising utility bills. Comprised of lawmakers of both parties from each legislative chamber, the members of the six-person Joint Select Committee on Rising Utility Rates will be as follows: From the Senate- President Steve Fenberg (D.) Lisa Cutter (D.) Minority […]
Xcel Proposes Yet Another Rate Hike
Colorado’s largest utility is back before the PUC requesting another rate increase, this time a $312.2 million bump in electric rates. The request is just the latest to arrive in 2022, a year that has come to represent a cost-hike bonanza for the energy monopoly. The PUC already approved a $182.2 million electric rate hike […]
Fudging the Numbers: How Colorado Policymakers Mislead on Energy Costs
An increasingly common theme of the energy policy debate here in Colorado, particularly among renewables advocates, is the trumpeting of cost statistics purporting to show the affordability benefits of transitioning to wind and solar over legacy fossil fuel plants. Take, for instance, a recent statement made by Governor Jared Polis during a gubernatorial debate late […]
Virginia Regulators Set an Example for Ratepayer Accountability
Last Friday, the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC)—a regulatory agency that, among other things, oversees the state’s utilities—imposed a strict performance standard that carries financial consequences if a proposed offshore wind project from the state’s largest utility fails to perform. This is a huge win for ratepayer accountability, and it has real implications for customers […]
The Colorado Energy Plan: A proposal that benefits all but the consumer
Xcel Energy’s recently approved Colorado Energy Plan (CEP) is what the company refers to as its “Steel for Fuel” strategy. With a green light from Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC), the CEP is a giant capital investment program to shutter Comanche I and II generating units a decade ahead of schedule. The CEP will replace […]
The absurdity of Demand Side Management and social engineering electricity use
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]“For every dollar spent, consumers save $1.77,” say supporters of so-called Demand Side Management (DSM) programs. Want to really save ratepayers money? How about not incentivizing utility monopolies to spend the dollar in the first place and just let ratepayers save 77 cents or more through lower electric rates? Here is the gist of DSM: […]
Energy Policy Center testimony on HB17-1116
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Michael Sandoval. I am the senior energy policy analyst for the Independence Institute, a state-based, free market think tank, headquartered in Denver. The Independence Institute is opposed to HB17-1116 not in intent, but in process. We do think […]
Caldara’s Newsletter 02-17-17
We have the best investors in the world! Of course, our operation runs on money. But we’re the Independence Institute, so we also run on political incorrectness, inappropriate jokes, and workday drinking. Get this: Different supporters came in today, at different times, to give me three different bottles of scotch whiskey! I’m sure that happens […]
Xcel Energy, PUC, and OCC are Irresponsible by Ratepayers
By Amy Oliver Cooke and Michael Sandoval Is it time to eliminate the Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) and elect our Commissioners who serve on the Public Utilities Commission (PUC)? Maybe. Our recent insider perspective on the so-called approval process by supposedly neutral regulators leaves us pondering that very question. The most recent Xcel Energy […]
Seizing power: Hick may issue exec order to slash emissions
Developing story One of the worst kept secrets in Colorado energy policy circles finally is public thanks to PoliticoPro. Governor John Hickenlooper has floated a draft executive order to slash carbon emissions from the power generating sector by 35 percent by 2030, as compared to 2012 levels. Doing his best President Obama impersonation, the Governor […]
Two sloppy mistakes poison Xcel’s well of public support and entire Rush Creek application
By John Knetemann and contributors Xcel Energy’s well of public support for the Rush Creek Wind Farm, a $1.1 billion, 95,000-acre wind farm boondoggle on Colorado’s Eastern Plains appears to be poisoned. Conventional wisdom says Xcel’s application along with the so-called public approval process via the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for the Rush Creek Wind […]
Despite skyrocketing electricity rates, former Gov. Ritter says voters ‘willing to pay more’
On April 11, 2016, former Colorado Governor, Bill Ritter, spoke to Colorado Public Radio host Ryan Warner about renewable energy and energy costs in Colorado. Warner pressed Ritter on the issue of costs, saying: Cost is central, central to the debate that is raging in the courts right now, in the state legislature, over the […]
