An inquiry by state regulators into Xcel Energy’s April “public safety” electricity outage — which created chaos in parts of the Front Range — has yielded a list of potential steps utilities and communities might take to limit future problems.
Faced with high winds April 6, Xcel Energy, the state’s largest electricity provider, preemptively shut down parts of its electric grid to reduce wildfire risk. The shut-offs lasted through April 7.
Local emergency management officials complained there was inadequate notice of the shut-offs and in Boulder County the wastewater treatment plant was close to dumping raw sewage into Boulder Creek before power was restored.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission, at the direction of Gov. Jared Polis, opened an information inquiry into the event, which left about 55,000 people without power. Another 45,000 lost electricity due to downed power lines.
“This is sort of the new normal,” Commissioner Tom Plant said. “We’re seeing, you know, increased events like this and also heightened wildfire risks.”
The PUC met with the company to discuss Xcel’s “need and commitments to improve communications,” according to Paul Gomez, an attorney for the PUC.
The commission also met with emergency management officials from Boulder, Jefferson and Larimer counties and a representative of the Downtown Boulder Partnership and held a hearing soliciting public testimony.
About 700 people either testified at the April 17 hearing or submitted written comments. They painted a picture of people bundled up in chilly homes, jails and emergency services in the dark, and restaurants scrambling to save perishable ingredients.
The commission reviewed the findings at their May 15 weekly meeting.
“This is obviously a very important issue for the commission,” Plant said. “It’s going to be a component in the upcoming wildfire mitigation plan that’s going to be submitted by the company.”
Xcel Energy must file an update of its 2021 wildfire mitigation plan with the PUC in June. So far, the company said it has spent more than $375 million on wildfire mitigation, including using helicopters and lidar to survey lines and high-resolution cameras and artificial intelligence analysis to quickly locate fires.
Still, an official investigation, by the Boulder County Sheriff and the district attorney’s office, concluded that an Xcel Energy wire blown loose by high winds was one source of the Marshall Fire on Dec. 30, 2021. The utility disputes the findings.
Editor’s picks
The company is facing nearly 300 lawsuits from homeowners, local governments and Target in connection with the Marshall fire, which killed two people and destroyed 1,084 homes, as well as commercial properties, for a total of more than $2 billion in property damage.
The commissioners were cautioned by Gomez not to discuss issues related to Xcel Energy’s wildfire plan in advance of its submission to the commission.
To avoid that, Commissioner Chairman Eric Blank identified eight areas of concern that he said utilities should consider in developing plans for public safety power shut offs. He framed them in the form of questions.
- How can businesses associations, chambers of commerce and emergency management centers in areas that are likely to be impacted by high winds be engaged to help issue messages?
- Can detailed maps be created and updated to indicate high-wind areas and likely outage areas?
- Should there be regular meetings between utility personnel and state emergency operations to discuss how, who and under what circumstances utilities would embed people in the centers during a planned outage?
- Can backup power plans be developed for critical local facilities and infrastructure, such as hospitals and sewage treatment plants, along with information on backup power capacity, batteries and generators at each facility?
- Can a similar list be created for residential customers with critical needs, including the potential for developing backup options through rebates or other mechanisms?
- Should power outage coordination meetings be held among adjacent utilities in high-wind areas?
- Should local governments in high-wind areas be provided with a single point of contact with a utility during such events?
- Are there sensors or other technological approaches that can help restore power more quickly without official inspections of every line after a power plant shut-off or other outages?
“For me, these are some of the core questions that need to be answered by the utilities and other stakeholders,” Blank said.