Boulder’s decision to seek voter approval to replace Xcel Energy’s electricity franchise with its own municipal utility is likely to take years longer and cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than the city expects, the chief of Xcel’s Colorado subsidiary said Friday.
And in the end, Boulder probably won’t be able to do the job any cheaper or better than Xcel is already doing it, David Eves, Public Service Company of Colorado chief executive, said in a meeting with The Denver Post’s editorial board.
“What’s most perplexing to us is that we think we can actually help the city accomplish its goals . . . and do it better than a municipal utility can do it,” Eves said. “The city has significantly underestimated the costs to do this. Ultimately, the city won’t really know until years and years and years have passed in the litigation and condemnation process.”
City officials have said they’re reluctant to sign new multiyear franchise agreements with Xcel tied to coal and natural gas because they might not be the fuels of the future.
“We have to move beyond burning coal, and Xcel isn’t going to do that for decades,” Macon Cowles, a Boulder city councilman and supporter of a municipal utility, said in a September interview with The Post.
Boulder voters on Nov. 1 face two measures — 2B and 2C. The first is permission to levy an $11.4 million tax over six years in order to move toward forming the utility. The second is to grant the authority to form the utility and the bonding authority to pay for it.
Should the measures pass, it’s only the start of “a long legal battle,” Eves said.
“We don’t want to sell the system,” he said. “Condemnation is forcibly taking it from us.”
Boulder has estimated it would cost $220 million to get the utility up and running, while Xcel says the number is higher than $500 million.
The push for the municipal utility is being watched nationally. Of the nation’s 2,000 municipal electric utilities, just 16 were formed in the past decade, according to the American Public Power Association.
Municipal utilities are locally controlled and don’t need to answer to the state Public Utilities Commission.
David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com
