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June 10, 2014 07:04 PM UTC

Xcel Getting Desperate, Suing to Forcibly Keep Customers (Boulder) Who Rejected Them

  • 5 Comments
  • by: catpuzzle

I posted two weeks about Xcel’s fight over municipalization in Boulder. Now it looks like Xcel is getting pretty desperate on this, so desperate in fact that they are suing the city of Boulder to try and force them to keep Xcel as their utility, even though folks voted to get rid of them. Per the DBJ:

Xcel Energy Inc. has filed a lawsuit against the city of Boulder, arguing that the City Council went too far when it voted to create a city-owned utility last month.

The suit, filed by Minneapolis-based Xcel in Boulder District Court Tuesday, claims that the City Council overstepped the limits voters imposed in a 2011 election on the matter.

So much for consumer choice, apparently. Boulder’s citizens made the ultimate consumer choice and decided to ditch Xcel, opting to run their own utility that can provide the kind of power for them that they want. After fighting it for years and years politically – and losing decisively – Xcel is now turning to the courts, hoping to force the people of Boulder to stay on as customers, even if they don’t want it. It looks like the prospect of municipalization is really scaring them, so much so that they are trying to force customers that don’t want to buy from them any more to keep buying. Boulder voters rejected them not once but twice – it's pretty clear where people stand: 

In 2011, Boulder voters granted city officials permission to explore ending the city’s electric service with Xcel (NYSE: XEL) as long as the new city-owned utility could meet or beat Xcel’s rates and service.

In November 2013, voters approved a $214 million cap on the cost of acquiring Xcel’s assets.

As I mentioned in that last post, it’s probably scary for Xcel because there’s a growing push across the state for this. Coloradans for Electricity Choices was launched by some solar advocates and others around the state. And, as MamaJamma mentioned in the comments on the other post, for Xcel and other utilities that are failing to provide the kind of services that folks want, or even attacking their own customers (i.e. those that want to use rooftop solar) the municipalization option is increasingly appealing, and people are starting to look into it.

This is good news for Pueblo, wrestling with the Black Hills Energy Monopoly, which has spared no effort to punish businesses and nonprofits who install solar on rooftops.

There are people meeting here discussing municipalization and/or forming an energy cooperative. The present situation is untenable – Black Hills has the highest rates in Colorado, is callous towards its impoverished consumers, and purposely suppresses solar.  Boulder may indeed light the path for the rest of the state to re-volt.

Thanks for the diary, cp.

This could prove to be a real problem for Xcel, and their response to it – trying to force customers that have rejected them to use their services – is not likely to be a successful approach in the long-term. In fact, it’s probably just going to piss off people – and the politicians that represent them – and I think it may wind up spelling further trouble for Xcel down the line.  

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5 thoughts on “Xcel Getting Desperate, Suing to Forcibly Keep Customers (Boulder) Who Rejected Them”

  1. Today's centralized, regulated monopolies that have for decades enjoyed  investor-grade returns for bond-grade operations, and lay the noose of their bad decisions( *cough* NRG, Commanche 3) around ratepayers necks, are not long for this world.  All they have left is the judicial branch.  Thanks for the update, CP. 

    1. Definitely, I've been following this stuff with a lot of interest. Will be interesting to see if this campaign picks up steam. Given how crazy Xcel went about it with just one city considering it, imagine what will happen if other cities picked it up? 

      1. That's their biggest fear:  setting legal precedent.  It can not be overstated just how valuable the work being done in Boulder is to the (literally) global movement of decentralized power and renewable energy.  We didn't leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones.  We won't stop burning fossil fuel because it's gone, either.  It will be because we've developed a better way to power a 21st-century economy.

    1. They're doing a yoeman's job for the transition movement, and we (yes, urban and rural Colorado) owe them a debt of gratitude.  Xcel knows the Boulder scenario is precedent-setting, and not in a good way if you are a monopolisitic, profit-guaranteed animal like they are.

      I'll give credit where credit is due – after we drug them to the table kicking and screaming in 2004 post-Amendment 37, they were supportive of the increases (now 30%, second-most aggressive in the nation).  With that, we gave them a profit matrix where Colorado now provides a disproportionate amount of their company profits.  (we're smaller than Minnesota, yet provide more to their bottom line.). 

      Since then, they effectively killed our solar entrepreneurs across the state and tried to monopolize that sector.  We're drowning in solar resources and VoteSolar has a 1 gigawatt distributed solar plan for Colorado that should be at the top of the Governor's 'to do' list.  Xcel has recently tried to gut our energy efficiency programs; they could have been out front with us on transforming to a truly-21st-century Renewable Thermal Standard proposed by Gail Schwartz last session (2013).   Yet, they spin their solar ownership plan as 'Solar Done Right',  we have this billion-dollar noose called Commanche 3 (latest Pueblo coal plant we're all paying for to repair their corporate balance sheet post-NRG debacle) and towns like Sterling, Alamosa, Burlington and Fort Morgan, Xcel franchises surrounded by rural electrics, could establish exciting partnerships to connect local, rural resources to their trade centers.  We could have the first 100% renewable-fueled P-20 education system in the nation with their support.  But instead, they fight.  "Done Right" campaigns that are nothing but code for "we own it".  Suing Boulder after losing three times at the ballot box to citizens – the third time they were literally taken to the woodshed even after wildly outstpending 'the peasants'. 

      I wish we had a ballot initiativae this cycle for Energy Democracy….just imagine what we could accomplish if we unleashed the collective scientific, entrepreneurial and technology genius of the citizens of this state.  And yes, I tire of the narrative out of the capitol building, referring to 'energy' issues in the vacuum of 'it's only really energy if it died millions of years ago.'  Our form of energy will be here and driving our robust economy long, long after the present-day drillers have come and gone.

       

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