Dive Brief:

• After staff of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission cast doubt on the city's plan to form a municipal utlity, the city of Boulder has amended its proposal and signaled it is willing to compromise on a range of issues.
• Last month PUC staff found Boulder's application to be incomplete, saying the city was fuzzy on how it would facilitate a clean break from Xcel's service.
• Boulder wants to take over Xcel's service and infrastructure, but there is concern about how residents outside the city's boundaries would be served.

Dive Insight:

It's a slow-moving process to form a municipal utility — two years ago state regulators determined condemnation proceedings should be handled in a regulatory proceeding, but Boulder is still just trying to make its application complete. After PUC staff raised several issues with the filing in August, city officials have indicated they are willing to compromise on a range of issues.

According to The Daily Camera, Boulder is now open to the idea of Xcel owning the distribution system outside of the city limits. And disputed lines would go to the electric service provider serving more customers on the line.

The city has also said in the past it would like to avoid construction of new infrastructure, but in its amended application said facilities "could be constructed to address specific customer locations."

The city filed its application in July, a 300-page document explaining how it would become “the energy utility of the next century." But the proceeding will not be a simple one — Xcel has opposed the utility's plan — and regulators in late August allowed five additional interveners to join the proceeding, essentially doubling the number of parties involved.

Those additional parties and coming debates over what the city will compromise on in its plan will likely mean that the long process will stretch at least another year. Observers say they don't anticipate the case to wrap up until 2017.