Legalectric

Alan Muller and I went to a meeting last night about Xcel Energy’s Integrated Resource Plan – coming soon to a Public Utilities Commission near you! Here in Minnesota, it’s expected to be filed July 1, 2019. Right now they’re filing a lot of documents in the prior IRP, PUC Docket 15-21. To search it go to PUC SEARCH PAGE and search for “year” 15 and docket 21. After they file their 2019 IRP, it will be given a new docket number and filings will be in that docket.

Here’s their presentation from last night:

I found this slide particularly troubling because of the overstatement of demand:

Reality, well, they say “existing resources” are at 10,000MW and peak demand at 9,400 or so… but, peak demand from Xcel’s SEC 10-K filings:

There are indeed issues with Xcel and its forecasting, almost always overstated. Remember the CapX 2020 “forecasts” of a 2.49% annual increase? Here’s Xcel’s forecast from the last IRP, Docket 15-21 (as above), p. 45 of 102:

What is Xcel doing to reduce peak? There’s a statutory requirement to reduce demand by 1.5% annually, so don’t think it’s going up anytime soon.

What is Xcel doing to shift the useage from peak to off peak?

And one thing that really sticks in my craw… Sherco 3. The turbine crashed/blew up/fell apart, and did a lot of damage. Sherco 3 was down for 22 months, and we did just fine without it. BUT Xcel proposed, and the PUC agreed, to rehabbing Sherco 3 at tremendous cost to us ratepayers. Now it’s back in service, and they’re agreeing to shut down Sherco 1 and Sherco 2 in the future, and then shut down Sherco 3 further out. Why did this happen? Why spend all that money to rehap Sherco 3, when we likely didn’t need it then, and THEN shut down Sherco 1 & 2. Why wasn’t Sherco 3 left closed, and then shut down Sherco 1 and 2 in the future? Why revive Sherco 3?

I also don’t at all like the way they call nuclear “carbon free” because it is NOT, look at the fuel cycle, and look at all the other problems. Nope, not OK.

And what is Xcel doing to partner with local governments, big box stores, warehouses, apartment buildings, over parking lots, to get solar on thousands of acres of rooftops?

What is Xcel doing to get PV solar, hot water solar, and simple solar heaters on every residence?

And what is Xcel doing to put up solar on brownfields, such as closed sand mines, closed coal plants, closed turkey-shit plants, closed garbage burners (Red Wind did put up solar at its closed incinerator site, but its small, need MORE!)?

Sooo, here we go. Xcel is trying to get everyone on board so there will be no serious challenges to their IRP, just as they did with e21 Initiative (what a load that was… grrrrrrrr).