Improved notifications and better communication with customers and critical facilities, like wastewater treatment plants and hospitals, are among the requirements that Xcel Energy-Colorado must meet when it shuts off power to reduce the risks from hazardous weather.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission endorsed a series of requirements last week after looking into complaints following Xcel’s shutdown of power along the northern Front Range in early April as a precaution during extreme winds. The company notified customers of the preemptive outages after forecasters called for wind gusts of up to 100 mph over a weekend.
The move, intended to reduce wildfire risks, drew a storm of complaints from businesses that reported damages, people dependent on medical devices powered by electricity and communities that said critical facilities were at risk. Customers said Xcel Energy failed to give them enough notice and to keep them updated on how long power would stay off.
The company cut off electricity to about 55,000 customers in six counties when the winds started roaring. A total of roughly 150,000 Xcel customers lost power, either because of lines being shut down out of precaution or wind damage.
Commission members recognized that Xcel Energy made several voluntary improvements after the April outages, said PUC Director Rebecca White. The requirements build on those changes, she said.
The requirements, which will be finalized when the PUC issues a written decision, include:
Continued coordination, including the development of joint plans, with emergency response organizations across Xcel’s service territory
Testing messaging systems to reach customers dependent on medical equipment
Clearly identifying critical customers, such as hospitals and wastewater facilities, to receive enhanced notifications
Improving outage and potential proactive power shutoff mapping to be user-friendly, real-time, and indicate the reason for outages
Improving notification prior to an event, and communication throughout an outage, to all of Xcel’s customers including businesses
Monthly updates to the PUC on these actions, including providing the copies of plans reached with emergency response organizations
“We welcome the commission’s feedback. We welcome our communities’ and customers’ feedback. We have done a lot to already incorporate that into our operations,” Xcel Energy-Colorado President Robert Kenney said.
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Xcel has included some of the points in a new wildfire mitigation plan that the PUC will consider. Kenney said Xcel has contacted about 90% of its 1.6 million electricity customers to find out who uses medical equipment that needs power. The company is proposing to provide rebates to low-income customers for backup batteries for the devices.
This year was the first time that Xcel took proactive steps in Colorado to cut power to reduce wildfire risks. Power companies in other states are increasingly using preemptive shutdowns as the climate has heated up and dried out, extending the wildfire season to year-round.
Fierce winds and unusually dry conditions drove the Marshall fire Dec. 30, 2021, in Louisville, Superior and parts of unincorporated Boulder County. The fire killed two people, destroyed 1,084 homes and businesses and did more than $2 billion in total property damage.
An investigation by Boulder County authorities said the fire started in two places: on a religious cult’s property when embers from an earlier fire reignited and near part of Xcel’s electrical distribution system, where a power line became loose.
Xcel Energy, which faces nearly 300 lawsuits over the fire, disputes that its equipment started one of the blazes that merged into one massive wildfire.
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