City of Boulder presses state regulator to create new rules for Xcel’s future planned power outages

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday, April 17, held a public hearing as part of an investigation into how Xcel Energy handled its planned outages during the April 6-7 windstorm. The utility cut off power to about 55,000 customers to prevent a downed powerline from sparking a wildfire.

During the meeting, officials from Boulder County and the City of Boulder emphasized different perspectives on the outage.

Boulder County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann said the county is still recovering from the Dec. 30, 2021, Marshall Fire. She said communications regarding the planned outage could have been better to prevent financial hardship to community members. But she wanted to underscore the county’s appreciation for Xcel’s decision to take proactive measures to protect the community.

“We want to thank and welcome the effort from Xcel Energy to protect our community,” Stolzmann said during the hearing. “Dozens of power poles were snapped like toothpicks in our area, which is not a common occurrence that we witness. So we do see that there was significant damage that justified Xcel’s planned outages.”

Mayor Aaron Brockett also acknowledged the risk of a wildfire during the windstorm. But he emphasized how the short notice of the outage provided by Xcel “also represented a material threat to public safety in and of itself.” He said critical facilities and infrastructure lost power: the city’s drinking water treatment plant, wastewater treatment plant, the homeless shelter, the Boulder County Jail, fire stations, traffic signals and cell service.

“Xcel failed to take the steps that would have resulted in better and more manageable outcomes for seriously impacted communities like ours,” Brockett said. “Why was Xcel not proactively working with communities like ours to develop a shared plan for how to execute the shutoff? Why weren’t steps taken to work with us to protect our critical infrastructure? And there were major gaps in notifications to our business community. Why did that happen?”

Brockett requested that the utilities commission require Xcel to work with local governments to develop a planned outage implementation plan, including providing detailed maps of impacted areas. He asked the commission to create rules for customer notifications and timelines for public notice. He also requested that communications include multilingual messaging on multiple channels. As part of Xcel’s upcoming wildfire response plan, he wants the utility to harden its infrastructure and create programs to help serve vulnerable customers during outages.

“Lastly,” Brockett said, “I would like to request that the commission consider Xcel’s financial responsibility for customer losses that have resulted from these proactive events, and particularly situations like this when customers have received inadequate notices.”

Read: Boulder City Council urges Xcel to compensate customers for financial losses due to planned outage

See all of BRL’s power outage coverage.