Xcel defends its Public Safety Power Shutoffs at PUC hearings

Reported by Maeve Conran

Xcel Energy has been defending its Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) during a series of recent hearings. Two separate shutoffs in December affected more than 100,000 customers, including many in Boulder County.

Last Wednesday, Jan. 28, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) heard from elected representatives, public safety officials, and business owners and residents in areas that were impacted by the two shutoffs in December.

Rainbow Schultz is the owner of the Jamestown Mercantile. She told the PUC Commissioners that the power shutoffs by Xcel in April 2024 were devastating to many small businesses in the community, including her restaurant. She said her power was turned off without any communication from Xcel, and wasn’t restored for five days.

According to Schultz, her restaurant lost its entire refrigerated inventory. “I contacted my local elected officials and they all assured me that I could just file a claim with Xcel,” said Schultz. “I spoke with them. After days gathering every single receipt, Xcel just denied the claim of $8,000 because it was turned off for safety. So then during this year’s wind event, I was determined to prepare and not suffer the same losses.”

She said Xcel sent her an email on Dec. 16 stating that her business would not be in the area affected by the shutoffs. When her power was shut off anyway, she lost $12,000 worth of inventory.

“I know this might seem like a small number, but it’s definitely enough to potentially close my business and lose employment for my employees. And I know other smaller businesses in our community came just as close to closing during this event,” said Schultz.

The Boulder Chamber of Commerce conducted a survey to gauge how local businesses were impacted by the power shut offs in December. Businesses reported an average loss of $25,000 per business, and over 20,000 workers impacted.

Last Friday, Jan. 30, Xcel defended the power shutoffs during a nearly five-hour hearing before Colorado lawmakers.

State Representative Lori Garcia Sander, a Republican from Eaton, pressed Xcel Energy President Robert Kenney on whether the shutoffs were connected to the company’s settlement over the Marshall Fire. Last year, Xcel agreed to pay $640 million to settle claims brought by fire victims, while not admitting fault for the blaze.

“We maintain that we didn’t start the Marshall fire,” said Kenney. People are gonna sue us regardless. So this is not a litigation avoidance technique. I don’t know that there’s any other way to assure people of that fact other than for me to say it.”

Then just yesterday, Feb. 2, the PUC held another meeting to hear from local government representatives and emergency management officials on lessons learned from the power shutoffs.

Ashley Stolzmann, a Boulder County Commissioner, was mayor of Louisville during the Marshall Fire. She said the county commissioners  believe the power shutoffs are an effective tool to protect against wildfire, but they should be a short-term approach  with a larger strategy in place to improve infrastructure in the Front Range.

“ We know that just like California knows there are earthquakes on the east coast, they know there are hurricanes. We know that there are 120 mile an hour wind gusts, and they’re coming again. We know because of climate change that it’s drier and hotter. We know that we’re going to have to do this again,” said Stolzmann.

Mike Chard, the Director of the Office of Disaster Management (ODM) for the City of Boulder and Boulder County also emphasized the need for better communication from Xcel with public safety officials, especially when power is being restored after a shutoff.

Chard said he wants a better relationship with Xcel. “There needs to be more direct one-on-one with the command and control elements of Xcel,” said Chard. “And to give you an example of what that might mean in restoration, we actually had two fires in our county. We don’t know if they were caused by a power line being re-energized, but there is reason to believe there may be an opportunity for that to happen.”

Kenney acknowledged that communication could be improved during shutoff events. He said Xcel currently communicates with customers “through outbound calls, emails, interactive voice recordings, a VR system,” and live-updated outage maps on their website.

“That’s an area where I think we’ve been very transparent that we’ve got opportunities for improvement there. Is it sufficient? I think what we want to make sure is that the information that we’re providing is timely and accurate. The outage map system has been our primary mechanism for doing that, and that’s an area where we’ve acknowledged we’ve got work to do to improve,” said Kenney.

Xcel says it’s investing nearly $2 billion over the next three years to reduce wildfire risk and strengthen the electric grid. As part of its Wildfire Mitigation Plan, the utility says it’s working to limit the size and duration of power shutoffs during extreme fire conditions by upgrading equipment that allows the grid to be divided into smaller sections.

In high-risk areas, Xcel plans to underground some distribution lines and expand the use of automated inspection technology to speed up outage response.

This story aired on the Morning Magazine, KGNU’s weekday morning show featuring in-depth discussions on local news issues. Click here to listen to other episodes of the Morning Magazine.