{"id":15961,"date":"2016-10-03T12:13:17","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T18:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=15961"},"modified":"2016-10-03T16:24:07","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T22:24:07","slug":"going-down-with-the-xcel-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=15961","title":{"rendered":"Going Down With the Xcel Ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Boulder City Council considers the merits of municipalization and Boulder\u2019s carbon reduction goals, it is essential to recognize that there are opportunities and risks with EITHER path going forward\u2014establishing a muni or establishing a deal with Xcel.<\/p>\n

\"By

By Frederick Whymper – Public Domain, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=41134597<\/a><\/p><\/div>With all of Xcel\u2019s major coal suppliers now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with Xcel\u2019s failure to consider even the possibility that the US coal industry won\u2019t rebound, and with the potential for utility grid defection<\/a> and load defection<\/a> as documented by The Rocky Mountain Institute, there is clearly a risk with the Xcel path of tying Boulder to a sinking ship.\u00a0 Grid defection occurs when consumers have other options for power that don\u2019t make them dependent on the grid.\u00a0 Load defection occurs when consumers shift their energy load from utility-delivered electricity to their own self-generated and stored power.<\/p>\n

The risks of grid and load defection are underscored by the recent report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories showing the continuation of dramatic declines in the prices for wind and solar electricity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For solar, the 2014 average contract price was 5\u00a2 per kWh. For 2015, 4\u00a2 per kWh, a 20% reduction.<\/p>\n

For wind, the 2014 average contract price was 2.4\u00a2 per kWh. For 2015, 2.0\u00a2 per kWh, a 16% reduction.<\/p>\n

Although Xcel has made some advances in acquiring wind and solar, it still has major commitments to coal, and may not be agile enough to keep up with changing market conditions.\u00a0 Xcel\u2019s customers will be on the hook for costs from rising fossil prices and\/or the collapse of the fuel supply.\u00a0 A municipal utility, owning no generation assets itself, and able to lock-in long term low prices with power purchase agreements of renewable energy, would be insulated from those risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Boulder City Council considers the merits of municipalization and Boulder\u2019s carbon reduction goals, it is essential to recognize that there are opportunities and risks with EITHER path going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":15962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[846,42,213,108,844,45,519,465,162,806,237,479,481,101],"class_list":["post-15961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-clean-energy","tag-climate-action","tag-climate-change","tag-coal","tag-electric-utility","tag-energy","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-ghgs","tag-municipalization","tag-renewable-energy","tag-renewables","tag-solar","tag-wind","tag-xcel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15961"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15966,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15961\/revisions\/15966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}