Xcel energy is asking for a $4.50 monthly base rate hike and is likely to get it.
According to the Denver Post, they have invested $1.7 billion in Colorado since 2006 and they would like to get that money back.
If one assumes that Xcel has just over a million customers in Colorado and charges each an additional $55 a year in base rates, it will take about 31 years to pay back that investment, and that doesn't include interest.
Those numbers suggest that a more realistic base rate increase would be in the neighborhood of $100 or more per household per year, depending on the interest rate Xcel has to pay and the length of the payback period. We used 1.2 million customers, 6%, and 30 years. Xcel had 1.2 million customers in 2003, but we did not include the built in profit that the PUC will allow.
That $100 per household number assumes that Xcel doesn't invest another dime in Colorado. Expect another $4.50 a month bump next year and the year after. Ten years of rate expansions of this magnitude is real money for a lot of people.
Of course, Bill Ritter wants to push his new energy economy on the backs of rate payers. His new energy economy isn't going to be cheap, and rate payers will pick up the tab. Xcel will get a profit on every dime they invest, so they are quite willing to help Ritter, because he is helping them.
The numbers and the politics say that rate payers will be paying as much as $450 a year in base charges within ten years. That is before a single watt is used.
Not all of Bill Ritter's tax increases are the visible kind, and this is one.
As an aside, note that the Denver Post did not include a word about the amount Xcel has invested in high cost wind and solar energy and the transmission lines needed to support them.
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