Gov. Jared Polis has directed the Colorado Public Utilities Fee to analyze the implications of Xcel Vitality’s choice to preemptively shut off energy throughout six counties through the weekend’s excessive winds.
In a Tuesday letter to Xcel Vitality Colorado President Robert Kenney, Polis shared his “disappointment and frustration” with the corporate’s public security energy shutoff that affected 55,000 prospects, together with its days-long service restoration and insufficient communication.
Xcel has defined its choice as an effort to stop wildfires through the extreme climate, though it obtained stiff pushback from impacted residents alongside the Entrance Vary.
“Shutting off energy to prospects is a severe and difficult choice that ought to solely be performed as a final resort,” Polis wrote to Kenney. “This incident has additional harmed Xcel’s status and social license.”
Polis directed the PUC to analyze Xcel’s shortcomings through the weekend shutdown and pursue enhancements for future public security energy shutoffs, similar to offering higher outage maps and extra well timed info.
The fee is to place protections in place to make sure future choices round service shutdowns happen once they’re “in step with the general public curiosity and when completely essential.” It can additionally study a number of different features of Xcel’s upcoming wildfire mitigation plan, together with the corporate’s emergency response coordination.
The fee is at the moment taking buyer suggestions in regards to the energy shutoffs at engagedora.org/share-your-feedback-with-the-puc.
By Tuesday night time, Xcel reported that it was wrapping up its energy restoration to a complete of 194,000 Coloradans who misplaced service over the weekend, each because of intentional shutoffs and wind injury to the utility’s tools. At 8:50 a.m. Wednesday, 59 outages remained, impacting nearly 1,000 prospects, in response to the corporate’s electrical outage map.
About 155,000 have been nonetheless with out electrical energy on Sunday morning following the worst of the winds, which gusted into the 80 mph and 90 mph ranges. Residents and not less than one meals financial institution have been compelled to toss unrefrigerated meals, and several other metro Denver faculties have been closed by way of Tuesday.
Polis highlighted that zero excessive wind occasions within the month of April since 1969 “have resulted in a deliberate outage like we noticed this week.”
This weekend, Xcel opted to make use of its public security energy shutoff for the primary time in Colorado, which impacted greater than 600 miles of energy traces. It additionally applied wildfire security settings, which require visible inspections of energy traces earlier than service may be restored, in response to the corporate’s Tuesday information launch.
“We acknowledge that being with out this important service brings challenges,” Kenney wrote in a press release. “We discovered quite a bit from this storm.”
When requested for additional remark in response to the governor’s letter, Xcel spokesperson Tyler Bryant largely echoed his firm president’s assertion.
“We stand by our choice to guard the general public from wildfire threat on this current climate occasion, and we firmly imagine our actions contributed to stopping a wildfire this weekend,” he wrote in an e mail Wednesday morning. “We’re dedicated to creating adjustments and enhancements as we work collectively as a state to answer quickly evolving climate occasions.”
Get extra Colorado information by signing up for our day by day Your Morning Dozen e mail e-newsletter.