Proposed Wind Farm for Boulder Could Power Xcel’s Largest Customers
Last summer, Xcel Energy offered to build Boulder a wind farm with the provision that customers in the city would start out paying more for electricity than the utility’s other customers.
Over time, if the cost of fossil fuels climbed above the cost of providing wind power, Boulder customers might actually have begun to pay less than others in the state. Boulder leaders left the offer on the table for several reasons, including concerns that Boulder would be shouldering all of the risk in the deal and none of the control.
But Xcel Energy hasn’t given up on the idea, and is now proposing two major changes that the company hopes will revive interest in Windsource. The first would drop the rates for smaller purchasers, including residential customers, from $2.16 per 100 kilowatt-hours to $1, a move that would make Xcel’s prices more competitive with other green energy purchase programs available in Colorado. MORE …
Filed Under: ARCHIVES • Development Policy • Feature Articles
Tags: Boulder • Windsource • Xcel Energy
Oil/Gas Industry: Trust us! We care, we really do. The rest of the us: No! 
Thanks for the info Fred! 
I think its a 10% mandate not 5%. 
To see this exciting change as "scary" seems incredibly short-sited to me. Between the increasing power demands caused by ...
Thanks for highlighting all the great work the Northern Colorado Chapter of CRES is doing. One small but important correction--the ...
Comment by Rich Mignogna on 30 January 2012:
You seem to be ignoring the issue that this wind farm — Limon II — was touted by Xcel as a “system resource” that would lower costs for all of Xcel ratepayers. It was approved by the PUC on that basis. Those of us involved in that docket were skeptical of that claim all along and now, once again, we are proven correct. Did they want it as a system resource or as a source of supply for RECs that they could sell for additional revenue? The answer was clear to us then and should now be clear to everyone else as well. No sooner did they obtain approval to construct the wind farm as a system resource than they turn around and seek to dedicate it to Windsource customers. The bottom line is that they will seek to obtain the additional revenue from Windsource customers and, if that falls short, they have ratepayers to backstop it. Incredible!