Xcel Energy Announces $16 Million Dollar Refund to Customers
Xcel Energy has announced what it’s calling a one-time $16 million dollar refund to their Texas customers.
Read more from their official press release:
Xcel Energy filed the refund proposal today at the Public Utility Commission of Texas. If approved, residential customers using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month would receive a one-time credit of $14.53. The refund will be based on the amount of electricity a customer uses in September, and could be spread over two months depending upon a customer’s billing cycle. Texas customers also received a fuel-cost refund in January that amounted to $11.76 on a typical residential bill.
In addition to the one-time refund, Xcel Energy has also reduced the fuel cost factor on customer bills to better reflect current and anticipated costs for natural gas, which is the fuel source for about 50 percent of the region’s electricity supply. The lower factors will reduce residential bills by close to 5 percent starting July 1. These savings, combined with expected savings from the new Hale Wind Project, will mostly offset future base rate increases that will be necessary to recover the costs of the wind farm and a significant investment in the region’s power grid over the past several years.
“Our investments in the regional grid require a large amount of capital spending, but they are the types of investments that make electricity more economical to produce and deliver to our customers,” Hudson said. “The efficiencies gained from adding wind resources and improving the grid, combined with low natural gas prices, have driven residential bills down by more than 4 percent in four years, even before the latest savings are figured in.”
Construction on the Hale Wind Project started in the summer of 2018. It is one of two large wind farms approved by state regulators that same year to help lower fuel prices by offsetting power production at area fossil fuel generating stations. The other plant, the Sagamore Wind Project, will be located near Portales, N.M., in Roosevelt County. Construction at Sagamore is expected to start by early fall.