The Boulder City Council is set to decide tonight whether to ask voters to approve the creation of a municipal electric utility — ending a century of buying power from Xcel Energy and its predecessors.
The city staff is recommending a measure for the November ballot that would continue the development of a municipal utility — but emphasizing that there are “off-ramps” if the process is too expensive.
“It’s time for voters to tell us if we should keep going down this road,” said Deputy Mayor Ken Wilson.
The shift to a municipal utility is being driven by a desire to develop more renewable energy to help cut the city’s emissions of gases linked to climate change. Xcel generates about half its electricity by burning coal.
Boulder estimates the price tag of a new utility at $6 million in upfront costs, $121.3 million to buy Xcel’s lines and $60 million to start up the utility.
A memo from staff to the City Council proposes doubling the Boulder Climate Action Plan tax to $6.86 from $3.43 on the average monthly residential bill of 700 kilowatt-hours to help pay for initial costs.
Once the municipal utility is operating, revenues would cover the utility’s costs and the city would do away with the Climate Action Plan tax, the memo said. Supporters and opponents Monday were mobilizing their forces to turn out at tonight’s meeting.
RenewablesYes, a local community group, is urging people to show up in yellow shirts and will be distributing fabric sunflowers.
The Boulder Smart Energy Coalition, which has criticized the plan, ran a large advertisement Monday in the Daily Camera saying: “Tell council: one choice is no choice.”
In an effort to keep Boulder’s business, Xcel offered to build a 200-megawatt wind farm dedicated to the city. Negotiations collapsed last week when Boulder officials balked at Xcel’s insistence that the wind farm and the franchise renewal be two separate ballot issues. Boulder officials said renewing Xcel’s franchise was contingent on the wind farm, so they had to be considered together.
The Boulder memo calculates that a municipal utility could achieve 40 percent renewable energy by 2020 at customer rates at or below Xcel’s.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
