Dive Brief:
- Boulder, Colorado, has asked Xcel Energy to supply power as the city continues working to form a municipal utility and condemn the utility's local distribution assets.
- The request for proposals calls for power to be delivered beginning in 2018 and for a term of at least five years.
- The city is still in the process of filing to form the municipal utility, and is preparing to submit a proposal to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
Dive Insight:
The city of Boulder has made what may seem like an unusual request — it wants Xcel Energy to supply power for at least five years, ensuring a smooth transition as the city forms a municipal utility and takes over the company's service territory. It's an odd idea because in forming a city-owned utility, Boulder is seeking to condemn Xcel's distribution system, the Boulder Daily Camera reports, including portions of six substations and a transmission line.
John Spitzer, a a member of Boulder's planning board, told the Daily Camera that while it "may seem odd ... it's always good for opposing parties to negotiate and to reach a smooth transition, and I feel that's the case here."
The request for proposals calls for an initial peak load of 257 MW by 2018, which the city said includes a 16.3% reserve margin. "It is expected that the city’s energy needs will be served by a mix of traditional resources, renewable resources, and energy conservation," the proposal states.
Boulder said it anticipates a growth rate of 0.56% in peak demand compared with the state average of 0.83% growth, possibly due to the city's "relatively flat load profile and local investments in energy efficiency and distributed generation."
The city said it would eventually begin introducing its own power into the mix, but wanted to do so at a pace that ensured Xcel is "not adding new owned or contracted generating capacity to its system in order to serve Boulder’s load."
