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Update 7/24/2024
As a result of the follow up actions to the initial power shutoff in April, the PUC requested that Xcel submit to the Commission a description of what immediate improvements they will make to customer communication, preparedness and coordination with emergency responders. The PUC has received this information from Xcel which can be found here. We are seeking public input by August 13, 2024. We welcome your feedback.
Summary
Over the weekend of April 6-7, Colorado experienced a weather event that brought wind gusts in excess of 100 mph in some areas of the state and sustained high winds throughout the weekend. The outages and weather impacts were concentrated in the northern front range. Over 150,000 people across 9 counties were without power statewide during the event. 55,000 of these were the result of an intentional, precautionary outage conducted by Xcel to reduce the possibility of wildfire. The remaining outages were either due to damage to lines or use of another preventative measures..
While power outages are a frequent impact of Colorado weather events, the April storm was the first time that Xcel pro-actively deployed preventative safety outages. In addition, a significant portion of the distribution system that would normally be set to attempt to automatically re-energize was not re-powered until visual inspection by utility crews. This precautionary measure meant a longer down period than usual as field crews had to manually inspect lines that had been de-energized. These measures are used in other western states including California and Oregon.
Please share your input and personal experience so the PUC can determine whether new regulatory approaches are necessary for precautionary outages.
Update 7/24/2024
As a result of the follow up actions to the initial power shutoff in April, the PUC requested that Xcel submit to the Commission a description of what immediate improvements they will make to customer communication, preparedness and coordination with emergency responders. The PUC has received this information from Xcel which can be found here. We are seeking public input by August 13, 2024. We welcome your feedback.
Summary
Over the weekend of April 6-7, Colorado experienced a weather event that brought wind gusts in excess of 100 mph in some areas of the state and sustained high winds throughout the weekend. The outages and weather impacts were concentrated in the northern front range. Over 150,000 people across 9 counties were without power statewide during the event. 55,000 of these were the result of an intentional, precautionary outage conducted by Xcel to reduce the possibility of wildfire. The remaining outages were either due to damage to lines or use of another preventative measures..
While power outages are a frequent impact of Colorado weather events, the April storm was the first time that Xcel pro-actively deployed preventative safety outages. In addition, a significant portion of the distribution system that would normally be set to attempt to automatically re-energize was not re-powered until visual inspection by utility crews. This precautionary measure meant a longer down period than usual as field crews had to manually inspect lines that had been de-energized. These measures are used in other western states including California and Oregon.
Please share your input and personal experience so the PUC can determine whether new regulatory approaches are necessary for precautionary outages.
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We knew that there was a forecast for high winds for a couple of days before it started. Since Xcel did warn some people, I expect that they were aware of the forecast, and did some kind of planning to deal with it. We lost power before the wind started, so I would have to assume that our power was turned off as part of the preventive shutdown. Xcel must know which addresses will be affected when they turn off power. If not, they certainly should. With the forecast, planning and system knowledge, they could have warned people. in many... Continue reading
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Our electric bill is managed by Fair Energy, who bills each condo unit independently in our building. But our energy comes from Xcel.
Perhaps due to this middle man, we received no email or phone notice prior to our power being shut off around 3:10pm on Saturday, April 6th. Our power was not restored for 28 hours.
I can understand the need for wildfire mitigation, especially with global warming leading to more extreme weather events. Combined with an aging power grid not built to withstand hurricane force winds, it is indeed a challenge to prevent wildfires.
We live in lower Sugarloaf, west of Boulder. I've been a long-time supporter XCEL and its ability to manage events that involve outages, and, until now, thought people on the inside of XCEL really were focused on "keeping the lights on" in rough times. But to me this intentional outage for our area looked like just a draconian CYA kind of effort initiated by uninspiring and uncaring executives from far away.
Our power was cut off for 26 hours, and the actual wind event occurred several hours after the scheduled outage time, with winds that didn't come close to matching... Continue reading
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In our neighborhood in Berthoud, we were part of a planned “precautionary” shut off from 3pm on Saturday until 1 pm on Sunday, due to the high winds. We live in a very small neighborhood with no exposed power lines (all buried) and no mature trees, so this seemed odd. When we asked around, no one outside of our neighborhood seemed to have been notified of a shut off, including our commercial business 3 miles away in Berthoud (with incredibly old and drooping powerlines) nor family in Loveland.
We drove around late Saturday night to find that the areas we... Continue reading
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My name is Barbara Farhar, and I am president of the Resident Council at Frasier, a senior living facility in Boulder housing some 500 residents. Approximately 400 of us live in Independent Living and 100 in Assisted Living, Memory Care, or Health Care. I spent 27 years working professionally in the energy field. Frasier's is a vulnerable population. As I write this, staff and residents are still recovering from the 28-hour power outage this past weekend from Saturday at 3:30 p.m. to Sunday at 7:30 p.m., with not even an hour's notice.
Our staff was incredible in dealing with all... Continue reading
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If the power will be shut down in response to predicted high winds, and this will happen 5-10 times per year then we really need to have clear notice of power shutoffs and reasonable expectations of power return. Our neighborhood got about 2 hours notice and was mostly word of mouth and power was out for 60 hours. Nearly everyone in our neighborhood supports the shut down to avoid fire. Our ranch burned in the Marshall Fire destroying everything of our families livelihood, our home, our barn and all the animals burned to death. We really don't want that to... Continue reading
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It's been said here that direct burial power distribution is the solution to avoiding future blue-state / California-style power shutoffs.
Maybe so. But underground power costs far more than overhead power, whether new construction or retrofit.
So the moneyed limousine liberals who occupy these desirable locales can be the ones to pay for it. To live in harmony with nature in Colorado, the year 2024, is to allow the natural fire cycle to take its course, including in the foothills. Meaning: not building your tech-funded McMansion there.
Do not expect the rest of us to subsidize your decadent lifestyle.
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Our family of 4 did not receive any notice of a preemptive power outage. We lost power Saturday evening during a wind storm. We did not regain power till Monday evening and my daughter's school not till Tuesday. My daughter was supposed to begin her CMAS testing Tuesday. Our house immediately dropped in temperature. Our infant probably suffered the most. He was miserable, so we're the rest of us. We lost hundreds of dollars worth of food. Xcel called with a generated message long after the power was out which started some customers will regain power soon, some tomorrow, and... Continue reading
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I have a degree in Fire Science and experience in fire management and operations. I live west of Boulder around 8,000 ft. Our fire danger was low, a 1 on a scale of 1-5.
Xcel corporate chose to shut down power to an area of Boulder County which was not under a red flag warning and around half of which is above 8,000 ft and experiencing what the NWS says is the wettest start to the year on record. Hello! Snow does not burn! For the future, I advocate for a process for power shutdowns which involves input from local... Continue reading
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Why did street lights stay on when they were getting there power from power lines that also powered homes that had no power? Were the homes power shut off by the smart meter and there fore the power lines behind the homes still had power?
