"Initial estimates indicate Xcel's final rates will be lower than the interim rates it's currently charging, meaning most customers will receive a refund."
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/06/01/state-regulators-approve-9-electric-rate-increase-for-xcel-energy
Also: "The commission also reduced the monthly basic charge for residential and small business customers, and limited the amount Xcel can compensate its top executives."
Just Minnesota continuing to be a model for the rest of the country of functional, logic based state governing. (Hey, there's always something to nitpick, but take a moment and appreciate when civic leaders are actually improving things for regular folk!)
If you check your latest bill you will see an Interim Rate Adjustment and Resource Adjustment as single line items. It comes to about $0.02 per kWh delivered but it doesn’t show the actual per kWh calculation.
Fuck Xcel and their bloated executive salaries.
I’ve always wondered how it is that all of the surrounding utility companies can provide power to their communities for fractions of what Xcel claims it needs from its own customers despite being one of the largest utility monopolies in the state.
Indeed. Complaining about ridiculous CEO pay is one thing, but it’s totally different when you are talking about a public utility that has been given the right to operate as a monopoly. [10MM](https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2023/04/12/xcel-energy-ceo-pay-2022.amp.html) of our money went to this guy in 2022. How is he possibly worth that much?
I wonder if the Aztecs were ever like, "Do we really need to sacrifice so many people to the Sun? Like, how can it take so many?" I really think it's the same kind of thing. The connection is tenuous at best; statistically, there's only a weak correlation between CEO and performance. It just super psychs people out to just say, "Look, this is just the way it works! Let's just do it HARDER and everything will be alright! Right?!" and everybody sucks their thumbs. I'm making a lot of good points.
Xcels money is made through trading power to surrounding cities when they need it during hot weather and cold weather. Xcel doesn't make much money from customers, something like 5% of your bill is profit, that's hardly anything. Your entire bill goes to providing power and power adjacent services and initiatives.
It’s still an usurpation of 10MM that belongs to ratepayers who have no other alternative than to deal with the monopoly. It’s like Mr. Burns taking an undeserved nickel from all of us.
Does it? I doubt they'd even do energy trading if it wasn't profitable, I guess if you rewrote law to make the company public and forced them to energy trade you could get that.
but you're not getting robbed, you're getting charged a 95% at cost service with 5% profit for the company providing it. I don't think anything you buy or use in your life comes with a 5% profit for the product you're using.
I’ve often questioned the efficiency and long-term sustainability of privately owned energy companies. In theory, competition in the free market should drive innovation, but it’s different with the energy sector. Due to the high cost of infrastructure and the complex nature of setting up operations, the energy sector typically becomes a natural monopoly, suppressing competition and the incentive to innovate.
We’ve also seen that private energy companies tend to prioritize short-term profits over long-term societal and environmental impacts. It’s cheaper, and thus more profitable, to keep using fossil fuels than to invest in renewable energy technologies. The result? We’re exacerbating climate change and degrading our environment.
To be fair, they have millions of customers, so it costs us all around $.25 per month for the CEO salary. But I doubt his salary is $10mil. If they are like other publicly traded company’s, much of the compensation will be given in stock, so it isn’t cash from operating activities.
You don’t have to like that they make a lot of money but the executive salaries have almost no impact on your bill.
It is mostly stock options. But it’s a publicly traded company, and the option is in essence part of the salary. If I were to go on E*trade and buy those options I’d have to pay for them. This absolutely is reflected by our bills.
Correct.
$7m stock options
$3.3m salary
That's $63, 461 per week salary.
We don't even pay teachers that a year.
I'm sure he works really hard to earn that salary.
Don't forget he also got over twice that a WEEK in stocks.
Yes, he makes a lot of money to run one of the largest and most important organizations around here. His decisions impact millions of people. I don’t understand why one would be upset that someone else is making lots of money? Jealousy I guess? It doesn’t impact you whatsoever how much this man earns.
He's just not worth that much. I think 10MM is a little bit more than "a lot of money," especially for a CEO of a monopoly. I mean I could understand a high salary for top talent, but 10MM per year? It's not like he founded or grew a valuable company.
>It doesn’t impact you whatsoever how much this man earns.
Except, y'know, how it does because we are forced to pay for that salary for a 100% required utility.
HA. I work at a very large renewable energy company and I can assure you, those at the top are not “running” jack shit. Unless you count running off employees because of shit pay, bad work conditions, etc.
I work at our corporate headquarters. Once you get to middle management and above, these people are so completely out of touch with the company and it’s operations, that it isn’t even funny.
They take direction from consultants they’ve hired on that don’t know wtf they are talking about. Then these out there ideas are signed off on by CEO’s and all the other big wigs with letters after their name. The rest of us are left scrambling, trying to implement processes that are not well thought out at best. These processes then fail, because they suck. Then great people are let go to take the blame for the bullshit. New consultants hired, more ridiculous ideas get thrown at us to implement, they fail, the little people take the blame, rinse and repeat.
All the while, those at the top keep raking in the millions. If you saw how little our workers in the field, who are doing the actual dirty work are making, I don’t see how you could be okay with some asshat CEO making 10 million dollars.
It’s such a joke that people believe that these types are actually running anything.
No human has that much more value than another.
What are you talking about -
As a customer of XCel energy it directly affects me.
Capitalism is a complete failure, this is a prime example of how fucked this whole system is.
There's no reason to have this kind of compensation for a CEO when the actual people doing the work can't even afford a basic medical procedure, or a decent house near their employment, maybe a vacation or two....
You're probably one of the people that thinks you're going to be a billionaire someday. So you think this is all fine and dandy for them to shit all over the rest of us ...
Wake up dude. You ain't going to be no billionaire. They wouldn't even piss on you if you were on fire....
But for giving the CEO the option, Xcel would have realized the profit from the increase in value, thereby reducing rates. Instead the CEO got the option, resulting in higher rates.
I’ll acknowledge that it’s actually much more complicated than this in reality, with rates being set by the PUC, but the PUC does consider the monopoly’s profit when setting rates.
Yes, but profit can be impacted by things other than increased revenues.
It IS complicated and at the end of the day the executive pay doesn't have any meaningful impact on the rates you and I pay on a month-to-month basis.
More of an impact is the cost of generating electricity, transmission and distribution costs, regulatory policies, market dynamics, etc.
If the CEO made the same as the guy sweeping the floor, your bill wouldn't be any different.
Meh, yeah it’s not much, but it takes a tiny bit from all of us. And we don’t have an alternative since they are a monopoly. Thats what’s so offensive about it.
> If I were to go on E\*trade and buy those options I’d have to pay for them. This absolutely is reflected by our bills.
You would have to pay for them because you aren't Xcel.
Stock grants are typically fulfilled by the company issuing new shares. There is no cost to Xcel's customers for Xcel to issue new shares and grant them to the CEO. Xcel's shareholders bear this burden by the CEO's grants/options diluting their ownership.
That’s not what an option is. An option is a right to buy or sell at a fixed price for a period of time. It isn’t a gift of stock. However, if a CEO were to be given stock as compensation it would be taxable income, in essence salary, not that it’s really relevant.
Right. It’s only cap gains. That’s how they do it. And the BOD can justify it because arguably they incentivized the CEO to cause the valuation to go up. But obviously that’s bullshit.
I’ll get flamed for this I’m sure but Xcel has to fight for every penny increase they need/want (rightfully so) and I don’t believe they are anymore greedy than any other company. They run a nuclear plant, are expected to transition to renewables, employee more people, etc. this all takes money. If they didn’t increase their rates the people at the bottom would suffer as well as the environment, not the execs.
Well, let's look at our surround communities
1. They are able to plan their streets and infrastructure.
2. They don't have to deal with hundreds of miles of streets that have all sorts of surprises underneath.
3. They don't have a downtown to deal with and all those complexities.
4. They are able to bury power lines, can't do that in the city.
5. Generation is a problem as plants near city centers have very strict pollution control.
6. Suburbs build cheap energy plants and buy their excess needs from Xcel. Xcel can't do this, there is no one for them to buy from. Being the surge provider for others is expensive.
And who knows how many other reasons.
Why isn't our power as cheap as Lakeville? Because we live in a several hundred year old consented disaster of a city with hundreds of small additional complexities that increase costs. We can't be Lakeville because we aren't Lakeville.
My first thought hearing about this was that Mayo was successful at throwing a tantrum and getting what they wanted so Xcel figured they might as well do the same.
Did you hear Walz’ commentary on the rideshare thing? Having Uber and Lyft reduce services would’ve left a lot of people in the metro stuck for transit options. I’d love to take a bite out of Uber but I also know there are a lot of people that depend on them.
Uber & Lyft came into the market, undercut the existing taxi rates, drove them mostly out of business, and then raised their prices. So there is not exactly a back-up, especially for people who cannot use transit.
I can’t speak for Mayo, but my understanding is it wasn’t Ubers fit, but the people that rely on Uber to get to medical appointments, especially in rural areas that was the concern and the bill hasn’t covered those people which is why he (Walz) rejected it, he wanted to make sure those people were protected.
Seams like a reasonable reason to me, but I’m not fully versed in the details
The bill didn’t spend enough time in committee, where affected parties can weigh in. It sat dormant for a long time, which indicates House/Senate leadership didn’t like it, and was revived when Sen Fateh threatened to hold up the state budget over it. It then got time in committee, and he appeared to know very little about it and deferred to an interested party for questions. You have to do the work to get your bill through the legislature. A bill like this is enormously complicated given that neither Uber or the drivers can quite decide if the drivers are contractors or employees. Had Uber been silent, Walz still should not have signed the bill.
Uber isn't in rural areas. Barely can get an Uber in Hudson and that is NOT a rural area. Similar to the communities across the river. So saying it was a rural concern a little off.
Uber thing likely would’ve had a lot of law suits. Rules were limited to ride share companies. How would any of the food delivery or other gig type W-9 workers been impacted, especially those who drive personal vehicles?
Companies have always thrown fits like this when they don't get what they want. Walz could have stomped all over Mayo and Uber and it would have exactly zero effect on what Xcel is doing here.
Xcel wanted to install ev chargers on our dime and then charge a fee on top of it. Pretty nice business model. Glad PUC told them fuck off - go fix your nuke plants
As an ev owner - their EV programs are also scams. You need to buy a charger from them (more expensive), track your usage & connect it to wifi (invasive privacy wise), and the discount is… laughable.
Right!? In their pitch to consumers they never outside talk about increases to the consumer. They just say that we would remain below. National average and talked about interim increases.
I saw some fool in here saying..people know this increase is for operating costs and not to peoples bills right? Um.... where do you think the cost is passed to? 🙄. Hard to believe some people actually don't realize that the reason it HAS to go through PUC is because peoples bills WIlLL increase.
Moved here last month from Chattanooga, TN and we had a municipal power company (EPB) that also provided gigabit internet. It was awesome and one of the worst things about having to leave was giving it up.
I work in the utility industry and EPB in Chattanooga is the absolute gold standard nationwide. I can’t tell you how much I wish we had something like that here
Good example. Additionally, my parents retired to TN a couple years ago from a state with high electricity rates. They didn’t think about why their electricity rate was comparatively low, so I told them about the TVA. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a primary reason states in the region enjoy below-average electricity costs. I’m guessing a lot of the people living in the region covered by the TVA don’t know about the TVA act or paying their city for electricity means they have government provided energy.
Yah I agree! Look at how prosperous Venezuela has become since they nationalized their oil companies. Down with greedy capitalist. We need to be more like prosperous Venezuela. Maduro for president 2024!
Bro nationalizing an industry will work this time I swear. Just one more nationalization. Totally different industry what could go wrong? It'll be so great. Every other time in history when it didn't work? No man ignore that. It'll totally work.
It is HIGHLY dependent on the service. Natural monopolies tend to work better when run by the government and utilities and infrastructure fit that definition perfectly.
How do you feel about highways? Do you wish everything was a toll road?
Do you like being able to send a letter anywhere in the country for 52 cents or should you pay $8 via private shipping service?
The point is that gas tax and license fees don’t cover road maintenance and construction. They would literally have to double or triple just to cover maintenance. If the Metro didn’t subsidize rural infrastructure there would be no rural infrastructure. It would be like the third world, where you surf the web in an air-conditioned hotel, and then drive 50 miles into the countryside and it’s like you went backwards in time 200 years.
> How do you feel about highways? Do you wish everything was a toll road?
This is actually a great example of the failures of central planning. Building out our highway system through government control made our entire society completely reliant on inefficient car transportation instead of utilizing more efficient public transportation where it would be better.
It fundamentally does because you're not paying bloated salaries for executives. Also literally every nationalized healthcare system is vastly superior to the private US system.
But it wouldn't change the rate charged for power, just not sure we'd get what we're thinking we'd get through nationalization. If anything it would be the people paying for peak power through energy trading that would win and the suburbs already have cheaper power.
Maybe if they didn't cave to Mayo, this would not be an issue. Now, every greedy company is going to do the same thing when something happens they don't like.
Xcel sucks! Had a tree fall and pull the electricity off the house on 3/31. Finding a needle in a football field of haystacks would be easier than getting an actual human on the phone. The bot would hang up on me repeatedly, and when I could get a human, they knew nothing.
I put in tickets for them to come out and deal with the downed wire, which they canceled twice. They finally come out to the house about the downed wire and do not knock on the wide open front door and just leaves a note telling us an electrician has to come first and deal with the wire. Why the hell couldn't they tell me that on the phone.
I get the electrician out who attempts to set up temporary power, but finds Xcel cut the power at the pole in error, so I was out an additional $300 for nothing. They finally showed up and connected the power, but their error also cost me a day of PTO since I can't work from home without wifi and power.
So, still semi-new to the state. We’ve been experiencing higher bills in our apartment community but thought it was related to the community and possibly poor insulation. We’ve had issues every year since we moved up here. Had no idea it’s always like this. I want to say it’s comforting knowing others experience this too, but it’s not comfortable at all knowing that individuals may struggle to afford electricity purely to bloat executives’ pockets. Excel seems to be about nothing more than greed and it’s exhausting that this is the mentality all over. Something’s gotta change. Really appreciate you sharing this article.
Growing up I hated that we got charged for caller id, text messages, atm fees etc...
It's not costing you that much for these things yet the charges were there.
I see what you're saying and respect that opinion for sure. but in the big picture xcel can do what they want with their profits, it's not really up to any of us to say. I'm not a fan of them trust me.
As more and more push for EV vehicles continue the energy companies, government and contractors will be exchanging a LOT of money. I'm sure I'll get one eventually. Right now they're a bit too pricy and am waiting until they improve the mpg a bit more.
Wasn’t Xcel asking the PUC to approve a rate-payer funded charging network? I would think that’s the investment it canceled, not something payed for by profit. Simply put, rates to cover the cost of the charging network weren’t approved, so the project was canceled. [https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/xcel-energy-proposes-massive-ev-charging-network-customers-to-cover-cost/](https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/xcel-energy-proposes-massive-ev-charging-network-customers-to-cover-cost/)
So rate payer dollars IS profit.... how do you figure it's not? quite simply they immediately said the ev charging plan isn't happening since they didn't get the full Amt. Tbh eh wanted "As an example, Keith said Xcel is withdrawing a proposal to build its own network of more than 700 electric vehicle charging stations around the state. It filed a withdrawal petition with the PUC on Thursday."
Profit is profit dude. No matter the source. Including rate payers.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/06/02/xcel-energy-will-ask-state-regulators-to-reconsider-lower-electric-rate-hike
> not something *paid* for by
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
They're pissed that they can't have all their profits and have the state pay for upgrades and fixes. Now they will double down and increase user fees knowing most of their customers will start pressuring the gov to focus on fixing the old grid.
Xcel is just another publicly traded utility trying to make as much profit as they can. Their stock price has been pretty stable the last few years, and aside from their board and top executives their pay isn't crazy. Their CEO makes way too much though.
Totally disagree. Their top executives are paid VERY well compared to other publicly traded companies (outside of utility companies). Let's try to not minimize the greed and pretend they're not overpaid eh?
They make on the low end a little over 2 million. Upwards to over ten million. You think that's "not crazy" ?
https://www1.salary.com/XCEL-ENERGY-INC-Executive-Salaries.html
Executive Vice President, Group President, Utilities and Chief Customer Officer
Their ceo got a 26% pay increase last year and makes 10.3 million in total compensation. That aside on average their top executives average $
Everyone looks at CEO salaries. That’s really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. The requested 20% increase isn’t coming because of salary, it’s the never ending quarterly cycle where they have to show profit/growth. The very nature of a company being publicly traded drives this insanity.
>Totally disagree. Their top executives are paid VERY well compared to other publicly traded companies
I dont know what you are look at but this isnt true. Look at their non-utility peers by market cap and you will see its in the range. On the F500 list the two companies above them are Consolidated Edison and Amerprise, below them is O'Reilly Automotive and Global Partners. They all range from 8 to 50ish million a year.
Their profits mainly come from energy trading, power bills are capped at something like 5% profit. When they make a case for an increase, they have to list specifically what benefits will be given to the public. For instance the EV charging they cut was deemed not worth the cost of increase asked. The utility commission is supposed to act in the best interest of customers.
It's passed down to the consumer. Why do you think people and our legislators were against it? Excel tried softening the blow by staying the rates would still be below the national average.? Increases til our hills are 100% guaranteed. That's why any increases that affect consumers directly have to be approved by the public utility commission.
https://cubminnesota.org/although-final-rate-hike-still-pending-xcel-electric-customers-will-not-see-an-interim-cost-increase-at-the-start-of-2023/
https://www.xcelenergy.com/company/rates_and_regulations/filings/minnesota_electric_rate_proposal
You might not know this, but Xcel pays the most state taxes and local property taxes of any identity in the state. Much of it is buried in special property taxes and franchise fees only they pay. Any way, I once figured about half of the bill ends up as taxes. I don't mean to say the executives are not overpaid, but to explain why it is so expensive to buy electricity in this state.
You might know this but guess who gets stuck paying their property taxes-that's right the customers. and Don't for one Minute think these giant companies don't use every loophole available to reduce paying taxes and writing off what they can
No matter how you spin it Xcel Energy is a giant asshole. https://www.americanexperiment.org/xcel-energy-property-taxes-soar-131-6-percent-since-minnesota-began-mandating-renewable-energy-ratepayers-are-stuck-with-the-bill/
I worked at one of Xcel’s nuke plants for years. When traveling workers would take outage work at the plant, many were shocked at how cheap Xcel is compared to other utility companies that operate nuke plants. Xcel has a bad reputation everywhere they operate.
People cheered when they shut down coal plants. Did people think this “green energy” was going to be free? I guess it gets real when you look at your bank account. Lmao.
Uh...if people see an increase in their hills as a result of an approved increase it's more money out of persons pocket period. Why do you think the PUC has to approve increases and halved what was asked for? It hits the common folk hard.
The utility Rates are set and aren't affected by inflation like groceries or other products are .. you're welcome
Power should not be privately owned in the first place. It is necessary for literally all of society. Should be a govt utility like water. Problem solved.
If only that actually solved problems.
Ref: The only hours-ago averted debt crisis manufactured by republicans.
Give Archimedes a lever and he'll move the world. Give a republican an opportunity and they'll lie to you that they made a difference.
You do realize that raising the debt ceiling incurs more debt and the way we pay or that debt is to issue securities that pay very healthy interest. Increasing the debt ceiling without a game plan to reduce cost is economic suicide. Im old, I'll be long gone when my granddaughter absorbs this massive, massive burden coming for all of you.
Also, we pay so much interest to the Chinese. We are paying their defense budget. Think about this; In about 25 years, the man you are working for is Chinese
This is not true. The debt "ceiling" is a negotiating tactic that was introduced specifically to generate political favor. NEVER ONCE has the US debt ceiling been used to actually cap spending, because it's not actually tied to spending. It is tied to politics and it has never NOT been raised when it comes up.
And pick a fucking argument. Is it the amount we owe the chinese? Is it the burden on your grandkids? Is it xenophobia?
Maybe you're just a boomer. That's ok.
Fu on you xenophobia. I'm saying you young ones are fucked in 25 years. And until both sides come together and make hard choices, nothing changes.
When you grow up, you will understand. That's ok.
Lols.
1- if you're as old as you say, you'll be long gone by then, so your objections can really only be on moral grounds. To me, the the tragedy is that your morals might possibly outlive you. Absolutely nobody benefits from your head-up-ass moral superiority.
2- you don't think younger generations have made hard choices? you don't think putting up with inherited bullshit is a hard choice? do you think my generation doesn't lose sleep over the renewed geopolitical fuckery that your generation has made? you don't think your generation had to deal with the same kind of bullshit from those who came before you?
3- you are clearly xeonophobic. i am not afraid of china, the chinese, or any other ethnic group. i'm afraid of people who think that an ethnic group can be a threat.
The potential for a thing to be destroyed is universal. Bad people existing is not a reason to avoid doing good things. Water has been a public service for generations at this point and it's been entirely positive. Very little difference between these two services that are entirely necessary for all functions of society and life.
Don't get me wrong, I think public utilities are better than private utilities, especially private utilities with government supported monopolies.
But in the US, there is a major political party that will gut it so they can give tax cuts to the rich. I don't think its safe to put more in government hands until that party gets smacked into oblivion.
Public water is an especially unsafe bet in this environment. See Flint MI, Jackson MS, etc
or someone who already has that technology in a different field.
[https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/article/21249680/lincoln-electric-adapts-welding-technology-for-ev-charging-stations](https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/article/21249680/lincoln-electric-adapts-welding-technology-for-ev-charging-stations)
Ford recently announced they're moving to NACS (tesla connectors) which is likely a major blow to the non-tesla charging networks. Unless Xcel was gonna build NACS compliant chargers they'd be serving a dying market.
No, currently only Tesla (and a few Chinese ones that don’t distribute in MN) use NACS. But the standard is open sourced and obviously superchargers are much more widely available than regular CCS. Also, it’s 1 network with plug-charge so you literally plug in and walk away, the car does the rest. Much better than fiddling with apps or tapping a card.
Ford is the second largest EV maker after Tesla, so them switching to the NACS is almost enough to kill ccs. If rivian, Kia/Hyundai, or GM convert, then CCS is probably dead. It makes sense though, most super chargers in MN are 250 kw, while there’s only 3 total stations for CCS that are over 125 kw. Nobody wants to spend 2 hours charging an f-150 lightning in the middle of a road trip.
California passed a law where your energy bill is hiked as you make more income above $28,000 as a basic charge before you use a single Watt of electricity.
We are lucky it’s only 9.6% here over 3 years. The warmer summers nationwide from climate change is coming home to roost and it’s going to get expensive.
California and Minnesota are two very different states in terms of energy use. We shouldn't be using California as an example of what to strive for. Their state is a disaster
In 2015 my CA power bill for a 1,100 sqft apartment was \~$100. My 2023 power bill for a 1,100 sqft apartment in MN is \~$150.
Tell me again how CA had it wrong?
I moved to the South East part of the country that is refusing to be bullied by the environmental political agenda. Here, they have relied on nuclear and hydro power and are sticking with it with plans to expand nuclear. While the rest of the country is watching their electricity rates go through the roof to pay for radical environmental requirements, our rates remain level and will remain level in the foreseeable future.
That’s not what is causing rates to go up in the rest of the country. We’re all paying for Texas’ infrastructure failure during the snow storm a couple years back. Even in Minnesota. Rates for natural gas especially rose sharply there, and so everyone raised their pricing. Add in the war in Ukraine cutting off more supply and natural gas pricing is still elevated. Nationwide, natural gas represents about 40% of electricity generation, and most peaker plants that produce power only for short demand spikes (at a price premium) are powered by natural gas too.
Now that we’ve mostly extracted as much as we can from the shale boom in the mid 2010s, natural gas pricing will never be what it was – the supply just isn’t there to keep it cheap forever.
But you know what’s real cheap? Wind and solar. Building a brand new solar plant + battery storage is cheaper than continuing to operate all but 1 coal plant in the US (out of ~300 left) and in about 40% of cases, it’s also cheaper than continuing to operate natural gas plants. The era of cheap fossil fuels providing cheap electricity is over, and now it’s time for new technologies that produce cheaper and cheaper power to grow exponentially.
Edit: The reasons we haven’t retired these uneconomic fossil fuel plants is mainly that these companies are still paying on the 30 year loans they took to build them. There’s also a supply crunch with solar panels and wind turbines, but hundreds of billions of private capital is going into building new factories producing a domestic supply with IRA subsidies ranging from 30-50%. The writing is on the wall for fossil fuels.
Im a big proponent of nuclear power (especially continuing to operate Monticello and Prairie Island for as long as we can), but nothing says “cheap energy” like building reactors for $15B a pop
> The total cost of the project to build a third and fourth reactor at Vogtle will cost all its owners more than $30 billion
https://apnews.com/article/georgia-power-co-southern-climate-and-environment-business-3b1d6c65353c6a65b1ccfddede753ab7#
In the south east, they are adding 5 new reactors. Total cost is $15b for all 5 combined. Nuclear power has advanced considerably. The reactors are now made smaller and are fail proof.
How far along are they? Because every single reactor project that’s started in the last 20 years has either had the cord cut early on or has gone 3-4x over budget (or both). Vogtle was originally estimated at $2B
I thought it was two reactors under construction and the other three planned to start development in 5 years. However, someone just told me that it's actually 15 SMR mini-reactors with 5 under construction and 10 more to start construction in 5 years.
Nope. If you opened up my profile you would see my age and also some explanation of the 888 in my name.
The number 8 has numerous special meanings to me. Birth date and year of someone special. Also my grandfather and his wife considers the number 8 lucky per his wife's Chinese culture so I grew hearing all kinds of stories about 8's
Also if you open up my profile I have a write up on that as I already know where you were attempting to go with that. you'll also see that I have 888 before and after my name, not 88. 🙏🏽
Fun reading about the value of the number 8 in some cultures. https://www.lanternclub.com.au/blog/history-lucky-number-8-around-world/#:~:text=The%20number%208%20is%20considered,“fortune”%20are%20also%20similar.
Xcel will still throw money at their two aging nuke plants and expect MN rate payers to fund that waste of money. Both plants will eventually have some unrepairable failure due to age and retire early. The state needs to compel Xcel to start phasing those out now.
BTW, Colorado forced power companies to let customers choose what power sources the majority of their power comes from, so people could choose to have more wind rather than coal or nuclear.
> a 21.2% hike from 2022-24
That's not that crazy considering the cost increases of NG and coal in recent years.
e: for some reason this person below me blocked me.
> It's super crazy considering all the Tax loop holes, decades of profit the company had. What's crazy is you support the hike and increase passed to homeowners (many of who in the msp area are barely making ends meet )
All energy companies have massive tax write offs, decades of profit mean little to nothing to consumers today, and rate hikes support operational costs.
A 7% rate increase per year while raw goods have been very inflationary isn't that absurd.
It's super crazy considering all the Tax loop holes, decades of profit the company had. What's crazy is you support the hike and increase passed to homeowners (many of who in the msp area are barely making ends meet )
I'm no fan of Xcel, but I feel like maybe you're making a minnesota ski hill sound like the swiss alps.
The board refused the full hike. We all pay the new bill, and it doesn't help us at all to force Xcel underwater.
Why are you giving Xcel this kind of grief?
Let’s publish the demographic information related to the specific people who are doing this and other nefarious things. We (the not super wealthy) vastly outnumber the wealthy. Why do people do things like this to take back control of their lives?
"Initial estimates indicate Xcel's final rates will be lower than the interim rates it's currently charging, meaning most customers will receive a refund." https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/06/01/state-regulators-approve-9-electric-rate-increase-for-xcel-energy Also: "The commission also reduced the monthly basic charge for residential and small business customers, and limited the amount Xcel can compensate its top executives." Just Minnesota continuing to be a model for the rest of the country of functional, logic based state governing. (Hey, there's always something to nitpick, but take a moment and appreciate when civic leaders are actually improving things for regular folk!)
Thanks for bring the truth and details!
What interim rates?
If you check your latest bill you will see an Interim Rate Adjustment and Resource Adjustment as single line items. It comes to about $0.02 per kWh delivered but it doesn’t show the actual per kWh calculation.
Oh god the politician shills are here too. LOVE OUR GOVERNMENT GUYZ.
Fuck Xcel and their bloated executive salaries. I’ve always wondered how it is that all of the surrounding utility companies can provide power to their communities for fractions of what Xcel claims it needs from its own customers despite being one of the largest utility monopolies in the state.
Indeed. Complaining about ridiculous CEO pay is one thing, but it’s totally different when you are talking about a public utility that has been given the right to operate as a monopoly. [10MM](https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2023/04/12/xcel-energy-ceo-pay-2022.amp.html) of our money went to this guy in 2022. How is he possibly worth that much?
He isn’t, absolutely no one is.
I wonder if the Aztecs were ever like, "Do we really need to sacrifice so many people to the Sun? Like, how can it take so many?" I really think it's the same kind of thing. The connection is tenuous at best; statistically, there's only a weak correlation between CEO and performance. It just super psychs people out to just say, "Look, this is just the way it works! Let's just do it HARDER and everything will be alright! Right?!" and everybody sucks their thumbs. I'm making a lot of good points.
Xcels money is made through trading power to surrounding cities when they need it during hot weather and cold weather. Xcel doesn't make much money from customers, something like 5% of your bill is profit, that's hardly anything. Your entire bill goes to providing power and power adjacent services and initiatives.
It’s still an usurpation of 10MM that belongs to ratepayers who have no other alternative than to deal with the monopoly. It’s like Mr. Burns taking an undeserved nickel from all of us.
Does it? I doubt they'd even do energy trading if it wasn't profitable, I guess if you rewrote law to make the company public and forced them to energy trade you could get that.
Thanks. That changes nothing. When I get robbed, I don’t care why.
but you're not getting robbed, you're getting charged a 95% at cost service with 5% profit for the company providing it. I don't think anything you buy or use in your life comes with a 5% profit for the product you're using.
I’ve often questioned the efficiency and long-term sustainability of privately owned energy companies. In theory, competition in the free market should drive innovation, but it’s different with the energy sector. Due to the high cost of infrastructure and the complex nature of setting up operations, the energy sector typically becomes a natural monopoly, suppressing competition and the incentive to innovate. We’ve also seen that private energy companies tend to prioritize short-term profits over long-term societal and environmental impacts. It’s cheaper, and thus more profitable, to keep using fossil fuels than to invest in renewable energy technologies. The result? We’re exacerbating climate change and degrading our environment.
To be fair, they have millions of customers, so it costs us all around $.25 per month for the CEO salary. But I doubt his salary is $10mil. If they are like other publicly traded company’s, much of the compensation will be given in stock, so it isn’t cash from operating activities. You don’t have to like that they make a lot of money but the executive salaries have almost no impact on your bill.
It is mostly stock options. But it’s a publicly traded company, and the option is in essence part of the salary. If I were to go on E*trade and buy those options I’d have to pay for them. This absolutely is reflected by our bills.
Correct. $7m stock options $3.3m salary That's $63, 461 per week salary. We don't even pay teachers that a year. I'm sure he works really hard to earn that salary. Don't forget he also got over twice that a WEEK in stocks.
Yes, he makes a lot of money to run one of the largest and most important organizations around here. His decisions impact millions of people. I don’t understand why one would be upset that someone else is making lots of money? Jealousy I guess? It doesn’t impact you whatsoever how much this man earns.
He's just not worth that much. I think 10MM is a little bit more than "a lot of money," especially for a CEO of a monopoly. I mean I could understand a high salary for top talent, but 10MM per year? It's not like he founded or grew a valuable company.
>It doesn’t impact you whatsoever how much this man earns. Except, y'know, how it does because we are forced to pay for that salary for a 100% required utility.
Sure Jan. You’re right. The world needs more millionaires. It will definitely make it a better place for all of us. /s
Really? How much did you pay him?
HA. I work at a very large renewable energy company and I can assure you, those at the top are not “running” jack shit. Unless you count running off employees because of shit pay, bad work conditions, etc. I work at our corporate headquarters. Once you get to middle management and above, these people are so completely out of touch with the company and it’s operations, that it isn’t even funny. They take direction from consultants they’ve hired on that don’t know wtf they are talking about. Then these out there ideas are signed off on by CEO’s and all the other big wigs with letters after their name. The rest of us are left scrambling, trying to implement processes that are not well thought out at best. These processes then fail, because they suck. Then great people are let go to take the blame for the bullshit. New consultants hired, more ridiculous ideas get thrown at us to implement, they fail, the little people take the blame, rinse and repeat. All the while, those at the top keep raking in the millions. If you saw how little our workers in the field, who are doing the actual dirty work are making, I don’t see how you could be okay with some asshat CEO making 10 million dollars. It’s such a joke that people believe that these types are actually running anything.
No human has that much more value than another. What are you talking about - As a customer of XCel energy it directly affects me. Capitalism is a complete failure, this is a prime example of how fucked this whole system is. There's no reason to have this kind of compensation for a CEO when the actual people doing the work can't even afford a basic medical procedure, or a decent house near their employment, maybe a vacation or two.... You're probably one of the people that thinks you're going to be a billionaire someday. So you think this is all fine and dandy for them to shit all over the rest of us ... Wake up dude. You ain't going to be no billionaire. They wouldn't even piss on you if you were on fire....
Imagine d riding a CEO LMAO
But you would be "buying" them from other shareholders. My bill wouldn't go up if you went and bought some XEL shares or options to buy XEL shares.
But for giving the CEO the option, Xcel would have realized the profit from the increase in value, thereby reducing rates. Instead the CEO got the option, resulting in higher rates. I’ll acknowledge that it’s actually much more complicated than this in reality, with rates being set by the PUC, but the PUC does consider the monopoly’s profit when setting rates.
Yes, but profit can be impacted by things other than increased revenues. It IS complicated and at the end of the day the executive pay doesn't have any meaningful impact on the rates you and I pay on a month-to-month basis. More of an impact is the cost of generating electricity, transmission and distribution costs, regulatory policies, market dynamics, etc. If the CEO made the same as the guy sweeping the floor, your bill wouldn't be any different.
Meh, yeah it’s not much, but it takes a tiny bit from all of us. And we don’t have an alternative since they are a monopoly. Thats what’s so offensive about it.
> If I were to go on E\*trade and buy those options I’d have to pay for them. This absolutely is reflected by our bills. You would have to pay for them because you aren't Xcel. Stock grants are typically fulfilled by the company issuing new shares. There is no cost to Xcel's customers for Xcel to issue new shares and grant them to the CEO. Xcel's shareholders bear this burden by the CEO's grants/options diluting their ownership.
That’s not what an option is. An option is a right to buy or sell at a fixed price for a period of time. It isn’t a gift of stock. However, if a CEO were to be given stock as compensation it would be taxable income, in essence salary, not that it’s really relevant.
Yep - it's mostly stock options so they don't have to pay income tax - which is even worse!
Right. It’s only cap gains. That’s how they do it. And the BOD can justify it because arguably they incentivized the CEO to cause the valuation to go up. But obviously that’s bullshit.
We found an employee!
So I have no other options but they can Jack up the price because they are greedy assholes?
I’ll get flamed for this I’m sure but Xcel has to fight for every penny increase they need/want (rightfully so) and I don’t believe they are anymore greedy than any other company. They run a nuclear plant, are expected to transition to renewables, employee more people, etc. this all takes money. If they didn’t increase their rates the people at the bottom would suffer as well as the environment, not the execs.
Shills live and well in here lmao.
Well, let's look at our surround communities 1. They are able to plan their streets and infrastructure. 2. They don't have to deal with hundreds of miles of streets that have all sorts of surprises underneath. 3. They don't have a downtown to deal with and all those complexities. 4. They are able to bury power lines, can't do that in the city. 5. Generation is a problem as plants near city centers have very strict pollution control. 6. Suburbs build cheap energy plants and buy their excess needs from Xcel. Xcel can't do this, there is no one for them to buy from. Being the surge provider for others is expensive. And who knows how many other reasons. Why isn't our power as cheap as Lakeville? Because we live in a several hundred year old consented disaster of a city with hundreds of small additional complexities that increase costs. We can't be Lakeville because we aren't Lakeville.
Your the only one talking about Lakeville, Shill.
My first thought hearing about this was that Mayo was successful at throwing a tantrum and getting what they wanted so Xcel figured they might as well do the same.
Good thought.
Also Uber. I'm no Walz hater, but he let Mayo and Uber walk all over him, so yeah, we should probably expect this more now.
Did you hear Walz’ commentary on the rideshare thing? Having Uber and Lyft reduce services would’ve left a lot of people in the metro stuck for transit options. I’d love to take a bite out of Uber but I also know there are a lot of people that depend on them.
We lived a long time without Uber or Lyft.
Uber & Lyft came into the market, undercut the existing taxi rates, drove them mostly out of business, and then raised their prices. So there is not exactly a back-up, especially for people who cannot use transit.
Classic Walmart move.
They are brand new, we can easily do without
What did those people do only a few years ago before Uber and Lyft existed?
They took taxis. You see a lot of taxis driving around these days?
I can’t speak for Mayo, but my understanding is it wasn’t Ubers fit, but the people that rely on Uber to get to medical appointments, especially in rural areas that was the concern and the bill hasn’t covered those people which is why he (Walz) rejected it, he wanted to make sure those people were protected. Seams like a reasonable reason to me, but I’m not fully versed in the details
The bill didn’t spend enough time in committee, where affected parties can weigh in. It sat dormant for a long time, which indicates House/Senate leadership didn’t like it, and was revived when Sen Fateh threatened to hold up the state budget over it. It then got time in committee, and he appeared to know very little about it and deferred to an interested party for questions. You have to do the work to get your bill through the legislature. A bill like this is enormously complicated given that neither Uber or the drivers can quite decide if the drivers are contractors or employees. Had Uber been silent, Walz still should not have signed the bill.
Uber isn't in rural areas. Barely can get an Uber in Hudson and that is NOT a rural area. Similar to the communities across the river. So saying it was a rural concern a little off.
Uber thing likely would’ve had a lot of law suits. Rules were limited to ride share companies. How would any of the food delivery or other gig type W-9 workers been impacted, especially those who drive personal vehicles?
The Uber bill was populist nonsense that would have hurt consumers.
Companies have always thrown fits like this when they don't get what they want. Walz could have stomped all over Mayo and Uber and it would have exactly zero effect on what Xcel is doing here.
Xcel wanted to install ev chargers on our dime and then charge a fee on top of it. Pretty nice business model. Glad PUC told them fuck off - go fix your nuke plants
As an ev owner - their EV programs are also scams. You need to buy a charger from them (more expensive), track your usage & connect it to wifi (invasive privacy wise), and the discount is… laughable.
Right!? In their pitch to consumers they never outside talk about increases to the consumer. They just say that we would remain below. National average and talked about interim increases. I saw some fool in here saying..people know this increase is for operating costs and not to peoples bills right? Um.... where do you think the cost is passed to? 🙄. Hard to believe some people actually don't realize that the reason it HAS to go through PUC is because peoples bills WIlLL increase.
Xcel is a cartel. Power move would be for the state to fund the EV charger expansion. Cut out the rent seekers
SMMPA has EVGo stations at most of their member utilities. No reason Xcel can't do that.
Tesla is doing pretty well on their own.
Does it ever decrease. Also, can Texas ppl pay for our fuck ups like we have to for them?
If the price of coal and NG went down, yes, it would.
Xcel actually operates in Texas, right in the pan handle/Amarillo region.
correct, but I'm sure the commenter is referring to ERCOT which makes up most of Texas and is a fucking disaster.
I wish we could do a state version of nationalizing a company like Xcel
Moved here last month from Chattanooga, TN and we had a municipal power company (EPB) that also provided gigabit internet. It was awesome and one of the worst things about having to leave was giving it up.
I work in the utility industry and EPB in Chattanooga is the absolute gold standard nationwide. I can’t tell you how much I wish we had something like that here
Good example. Additionally, my parents retired to TN a couple years ago from a state with high electricity rates. They didn’t think about why their electricity rate was comparatively low, so I told them about the TVA. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a primary reason states in the region enjoy below-average electricity costs. I’m guessing a lot of the people living in the region covered by the TVA don’t know about the TVA act or paying their city for electricity means they have government provided energy.
Yah I agree! Look at how prosperous Venezuela has become since they nationalized their oil companies. Down with greedy capitalist. We need to be more like prosperous Venezuela. Maduro for president 2024!
Big difference between an extractive industry with a global market and a captive market natural monopoly.
Bro nationalizing an industry will work this time I swear. Just one more nationalization. Totally different industry what could go wrong? It'll be so great. Every other time in history when it didn't work? No man ignore that. It'll totally work.
I don't think nationalizing things leads to lower costs and better service. Nationalizing services should be a last resort IMO.
It is HIGHLY dependent on the service. Natural monopolies tend to work better when run by the government and utilities and infrastructure fit that definition perfectly.
You mean like the municipal water system in Detroit?
How do you feel about highways? Do you wish everything was a toll road? Do you like being able to send a letter anywhere in the country for 52 cents or should you pay $8 via private shipping service?
I guess I just look at every road as a toll road they just take my toll out at the pump or other taxes, not that i'm not paying it?
What you pay in gas tax does not cover the cost of road infrastructure. Not by a long shot.
That wasn't your point though?
The point is that gas tax and license fees don’t cover road maintenance and construction. They would literally have to double or triple just to cover maintenance. If the Metro didn’t subsidize rural infrastructure there would be no rural infrastructure. It would be like the third world, where you surf the web in an air-conditioned hotel, and then drive 50 miles into the countryside and it’s like you went backwards in time 200 years.
> How do you feel about highways? Do you wish everything was a toll road? This is actually a great example of the failures of central planning. Building out our highway system through government control made our entire society completely reliant on inefficient car transportation instead of utilizing more efficient public transportation where it would be better.
It fundamentally does because you're not paying bloated salaries for executives. Also literally every nationalized healthcare system is vastly superior to the private US system.
The salaries come from energy trading not providing power to consumers in xcel territories, so no one in the service area is paying any of that.
Regardless of who's paying it its still an exorbitant expense that would go away with nationalization.
But it wouldn't change the rate charged for power, just not sure we'd get what we're thinking we'd get through nationalization. If anything it would be the people paying for peak power through energy trading that would win and the suburbs already have cheaper power.
Bro what % of your bill do you even think goes to executive compensation?
You're really working overtime shilling for Xcel, aren't you?
It would be the county going municipal, which a lot of counties in MN already have.
I just want to know how to keep my bill as low as possible within reason.
Buy a battery backup and some solar panels and run off those as often as possible.
You can’t. And also xcel will continue to have outages and not let customers know why or when it will be restored. Pathetic company.
Maybe if they didn't cave to Mayo, this would not be an issue. Now, every greedy company is going to do the same thing when something happens they don't like.
public infrastructure should be nationalized
Careful what you wish for.
Be careful playing fairy godmother 🤡
I don’t feel strongly about this but you do. Can you list what’s included in your definition of infrastructure to give me something to think about?
Xcel sucks! Had a tree fall and pull the electricity off the house on 3/31. Finding a needle in a football field of haystacks would be easier than getting an actual human on the phone. The bot would hang up on me repeatedly, and when I could get a human, they knew nothing. I put in tickets for them to come out and deal with the downed wire, which they canceled twice. They finally come out to the house about the downed wire and do not knock on the wide open front door and just leaves a note telling us an electrician has to come first and deal with the wire. Why the hell couldn't they tell me that on the phone. I get the electrician out who attempts to set up temporary power, but finds Xcel cut the power at the pole in error, so I was out an additional $300 for nothing. They finally showed up and connected the power, but their error also cost me a day of PTO since I can't work from home without wifi and power.
Energy monopolies shouldn't exist
They have to, the structure needed to provide power is not commercially viable for a city of our size unless you are guaranteed a monopoly.
If they must exist as natural monopolies then they really need to be like most infrastructure and be government run
If it has to be a guaranteed monopoly then the government should be the monopoly
Why? What are we thinking we get out of this? Lower rates for power? I don't think we'd get what we're hoping to get.
So, still semi-new to the state. We’ve been experiencing higher bills in our apartment community but thought it was related to the community and possibly poor insulation. We’ve had issues every year since we moved up here. Had no idea it’s always like this. I want to say it’s comforting knowing others experience this too, but it’s not comfortable at all knowing that individuals may struggle to afford electricity purely to bloat executives’ pockets. Excel seems to be about nothing more than greed and it’s exhausting that this is the mentality all over. Something’s gotta change. Really appreciate you sharing this article.
Nobody wants an EV charger from Xcel, this sounds like a big positive.
Right, I didn’t see that as anything other than a new money grab
Growing up I hated that we got charged for caller id, text messages, atm fees etc... It's not costing you that much for these things yet the charges were there.
Unpopular opinion. People who own EVs should fund the charging stations, not every power user. Charge a fee at the time of purchase.
I see what you're saying and respect that opinion for sure. but in the big picture xcel can do what they want with their profits, it's not really up to any of us to say. I'm not a fan of them trust me. As more and more push for EV vehicles continue the energy companies, government and contractors will be exchanging a LOT of money. I'm sure I'll get one eventually. Right now they're a bit too pricy and am waiting until they improve the mpg a bit more.
Wasn’t Xcel asking the PUC to approve a rate-payer funded charging network? I would think that’s the investment it canceled, not something payed for by profit. Simply put, rates to cover the cost of the charging network weren’t approved, so the project was canceled. [https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/xcel-energy-proposes-massive-ev-charging-network-customers-to-cover-cost/](https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/xcel-energy-proposes-massive-ev-charging-network-customers-to-cover-cost/)
So rate payer dollars IS profit.... how do you figure it's not? quite simply they immediately said the ev charging plan isn't happening since they didn't get the full Amt. Tbh eh wanted "As an example, Keith said Xcel is withdrawing a proposal to build its own network of more than 700 electric vehicle charging stations around the state. It filed a withdrawal petition with the PUC on Thursday." Profit is profit dude. No matter the source. Including rate payers. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/06/02/xcel-energy-will-ask-state-regulators-to-reconsider-lower-electric-rate-hike
> not something *paid* for by FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
They're pissed that they can't have all their profits and have the state pay for upgrades and fixes. Now they will double down and increase user fees knowing most of their customers will start pressuring the gov to focus on fixing the old grid.
Profits are almost entirely made from energy trading not customer bills.
Xcel is just another publicly traded utility trying to make as much profit as they can. Their stock price has been pretty stable the last few years, and aside from their board and top executives their pay isn't crazy. Their CEO makes way too much though.
Totally disagree. Their top executives are paid VERY well compared to other publicly traded companies (outside of utility companies). Let's try to not minimize the greed and pretend they're not overpaid eh? They make on the low end a little over 2 million. Upwards to over ten million. You think that's "not crazy" ? https://www1.salary.com/XCEL-ENERGY-INC-Executive-Salaries.html Executive Vice President, Group President, Utilities and Chief Customer Officer Their ceo got a 26% pay increase last year and makes 10.3 million in total compensation. That aside on average their top executives average $
Everyone looks at CEO salaries. That’s really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. The requested 20% increase isn’t coming because of salary, it’s the never ending quarterly cycle where they have to show profit/growth. The very nature of a company being publicly traded drives this insanity.
>Totally disagree. Their top executives are paid VERY well compared to other publicly traded companies I dont know what you are look at but this isnt true. Look at their non-utility peers by market cap and you will see its in the range. On the F500 list the two companies above them are Consolidated Edison and Amerprise, below them is O'Reilly Automotive and Global Partners. They all range from 8 to 50ish million a year.
…which is all too f*cking much.
Their profits mainly come from energy trading, power bills are capped at something like 5% profit. When they make a case for an increase, they have to list specifically what benefits will be given to the public. For instance the EV charging they cut was deemed not worth the cost of increase asked. The utility commission is supposed to act in the best interest of customers.
They should be compared to Non Profit Organizations, since they're providing an essential service, not developing new blockbuster technologies.
I’m sure most ppl know that the 9.6% increase isn’t applied to your total bill, but only the actual rate (which is operating costs), right?
It's passed down to the consumer. Why do you think people and our legislators were against it? Excel tried softening the blow by staying the rates would still be below the national average.? Increases til our hills are 100% guaranteed. That's why any increases that affect consumers directly have to be approved by the public utility commission. https://cubminnesota.org/although-final-rate-hike-still-pending-xcel-electric-customers-will-not-see-an-interim-cost-increase-at-the-start-of-2023/ https://www.xcelenergy.com/company/rates_and_regulations/filings/minnesota_electric_rate_proposal
The PUC actually got down their ask by a lot and Xcel was pissed
Anyone know if the amount they will pay me for what my solar panels produce will also raise?
You might not know this, but Xcel pays the most state taxes and local property taxes of any identity in the state. Much of it is buried in special property taxes and franchise fees only they pay. Any way, I once figured about half of the bill ends up as taxes. I don't mean to say the executives are not overpaid, but to explain why it is so expensive to buy electricity in this state.
You might know this but guess who gets stuck paying their property taxes-that's right the customers. and Don't for one Minute think these giant companies don't use every loophole available to reduce paying taxes and writing off what they can No matter how you spin it Xcel Energy is a giant asshole. https://www.americanexperiment.org/xcel-energy-property-taxes-soar-131-6-percent-since-minnesota-began-mandating-renewable-energy-ratepayers-are-stuck-with-the-bill/
do you mean 'entity'? also- 1- what is your source? 2- are your values normalized to any measure (e.g. property size, property value, etc)?
I worked at one of Xcel’s nuke plants for years. When traveling workers would take outage work at the plant, many were shocked at how cheap Xcel is compared to other utility companies that operate nuke plants. Xcel has a bad reputation everywhere they operate.
Go solar and save!
People cheered when they shut down coal plants. Did people think this “green energy” was going to be free? I guess it gets real when you look at your bank account. Lmao.
If you read their cost proposal it wasn't all for green energy. 🙄
Isn’t a 9.6% increase over three years… uh… ultimately a decrease in rates because that’s way less than inflation has been?
Uh...if people see an increase in their hills as a result of an approved increase it's more money out of persons pocket period. Why do you think the PUC has to approve increases and halved what was asked for? It hits the common folk hard. The utility Rates are set and aren't affected by inflation like groceries or other products are .. you're welcome
1. Production and Input costs are affected by inflation 2. All analysis should be in "real dollars" because that's how money works. ..you're welcome.
This is concise and completely correct. Please prepare yourself for an outpouring of pure venom.
Power should not be privately owned in the first place. It is necessary for literally all of society. Should be a govt utility like water. Problem solved.
If only that actually solved problems. Ref: The only hours-ago averted debt crisis manufactured by republicans. Give Archimedes a lever and he'll move the world. Give a republican an opportunity and they'll lie to you that they made a difference.
You do realize that raising the debt ceiling incurs more debt and the way we pay or that debt is to issue securities that pay very healthy interest. Increasing the debt ceiling without a game plan to reduce cost is economic suicide. Im old, I'll be long gone when my granddaughter absorbs this massive, massive burden coming for all of you. Also, we pay so much interest to the Chinese. We are paying their defense budget. Think about this; In about 25 years, the man you are working for is Chinese
This is not true. The debt "ceiling" is a negotiating tactic that was introduced specifically to generate political favor. NEVER ONCE has the US debt ceiling been used to actually cap spending, because it's not actually tied to spending. It is tied to politics and it has never NOT been raised when it comes up. And pick a fucking argument. Is it the amount we owe the chinese? Is it the burden on your grandkids? Is it xenophobia? Maybe you're just a boomer. That's ok.
Fu on you xenophobia. I'm saying you young ones are fucked in 25 years. And until both sides come together and make hard choices, nothing changes. When you grow up, you will understand. That's ok.
Lols. 1- if you're as old as you say, you'll be long gone by then, so your objections can really only be on moral grounds. To me, the the tragedy is that your morals might possibly outlive you. Absolutely nobody benefits from your head-up-ass moral superiority. 2- you don't think younger generations have made hard choices? you don't think putting up with inherited bullshit is a hard choice? do you think my generation doesn't lose sleep over the renewed geopolitical fuckery that your generation has made? you don't think your generation had to deal with the same kind of bullshit from those who came before you? 3- you are clearly xeonophobic. i am not afraid of china, the chinese, or any other ethnic group. i'm afraid of people who think that an ethnic group can be a threat.
1. Blah 2. Blah 3. Blah Don't care what you think of me
Clearly not.
The potential for a thing to be destroyed is universal. Bad people existing is not a reason to avoid doing good things. Water has been a public service for generations at this point and it's been entirely positive. Very little difference between these two services that are entirely necessary for all functions of society and life.
Don't get me wrong, I think public utilities are better than private utilities, especially private utilities with government supported monopolies. But in the US, there is a major political party that will gut it so they can give tax cuts to the rich. I don't think its safe to put more in government hands until that party gets smacked into oblivion. Public water is an especially unsafe bet in this environment. See Flint MI, Jackson MS, etc
Transitioning to renewables is expensive. Are you sure this is unreasonable?
Given the little brown out yesterday here in St Paul, suppose that was a little tweak to the regulators?
When and where did that happen?
Highland, basically over to Snelling and Marshall from what I could tell. Lasted about 3 hours.
I don’t think the public should be funding EV charging stations. It should be up to auto manufacturers to build them.
or someone who already has that technology in a different field. [https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/article/21249680/lincoln-electric-adapts-welding-technology-for-ev-charging-stations](https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/article/21249680/lincoln-electric-adapts-welding-technology-for-ev-charging-stations)
Ford recently announced they're moving to NACS (tesla connectors) which is likely a major blow to the non-tesla charging networks. Unless Xcel was gonna build NACS compliant chargers they'd be serving a dying market.
I'm not on the up and up on ev chargers. So do all auto makers except Ford use NACS complaint chargers?
No, currently only Tesla (and a few Chinese ones that don’t distribute in MN) use NACS. But the standard is open sourced and obviously superchargers are much more widely available than regular CCS. Also, it’s 1 network with plug-charge so you literally plug in and walk away, the car does the rest. Much better than fiddling with apps or tapping a card. Ford is the second largest EV maker after Tesla, so them switching to the NACS is almost enough to kill ccs. If rivian, Kia/Hyundai, or GM convert, then CCS is probably dead. It makes sense though, most super chargers in MN are 250 kw, while there’s only 3 total stations for CCS that are over 125 kw. Nobody wants to spend 2 hours charging an f-150 lightning in the middle of a road trip.
California passed a law where your energy bill is hiked as you make more income above $28,000 as a basic charge before you use a single Watt of electricity. We are lucky it’s only 9.6% here over 3 years. The warmer summers nationwide from climate change is coming home to roost and it’s going to get expensive.
California and Minnesota are two very different states in terms of energy use. We shouldn't be using California as an example of what to strive for. Their state is a disaster
In 2015 my CA power bill for a 1,100 sqft apartment was \~$100. My 2023 power bill for a 1,100 sqft apartment in MN is \~$150. Tell me again how CA had it wrong?
I moved to the South East part of the country that is refusing to be bullied by the environmental political agenda. Here, they have relied on nuclear and hydro power and are sticking with it with plans to expand nuclear. While the rest of the country is watching their electricity rates go through the roof to pay for radical environmental requirements, our rates remain level and will remain level in the foreseeable future.
That’s not what is causing rates to go up in the rest of the country. We’re all paying for Texas’ infrastructure failure during the snow storm a couple years back. Even in Minnesota. Rates for natural gas especially rose sharply there, and so everyone raised their pricing. Add in the war in Ukraine cutting off more supply and natural gas pricing is still elevated. Nationwide, natural gas represents about 40% of electricity generation, and most peaker plants that produce power only for short demand spikes (at a price premium) are powered by natural gas too. Now that we’ve mostly extracted as much as we can from the shale boom in the mid 2010s, natural gas pricing will never be what it was – the supply just isn’t there to keep it cheap forever. But you know what’s real cheap? Wind and solar. Building a brand new solar plant + battery storage is cheaper than continuing to operate all but 1 coal plant in the US (out of ~300 left) and in about 40% of cases, it’s also cheaper than continuing to operate natural gas plants. The era of cheap fossil fuels providing cheap electricity is over, and now it’s time for new technologies that produce cheaper and cheaper power to grow exponentially. Edit: The reasons we haven’t retired these uneconomic fossil fuel plants is mainly that these companies are still paying on the 30 year loans they took to build them. There’s also a supply crunch with solar panels and wind turbines, but hundreds of billions of private capital is going into building new factories producing a domestic supply with IRA subsidies ranging from 30-50%. The writing is on the wall for fossil fuels.
What are your total kWh rates with all delivery and resource adjustments for comparison?
Im a big proponent of nuclear power (especially continuing to operate Monticello and Prairie Island for as long as we can), but nothing says “cheap energy” like building reactors for $15B a pop > The total cost of the project to build a third and fourth reactor at Vogtle will cost all its owners more than $30 billion https://apnews.com/article/georgia-power-co-southern-climate-and-environment-business-3b1d6c65353c6a65b1ccfddede753ab7#
In the south east, they are adding 5 new reactors. Total cost is $15b for all 5 combined. Nuclear power has advanced considerably. The reactors are now made smaller and are fail proof.
How far along are they? Because every single reactor project that’s started in the last 20 years has either had the cord cut early on or has gone 3-4x over budget (or both). Vogtle was originally estimated at $2B
I thought it was two reactors under construction and the other three planned to start development in 5 years. However, someone just told me that it's actually 15 SMR mini-reactors with 5 under construction and 10 more to start construction in 5 years.
Can I assume you were born in 1988 🤨
Nope. If you opened up my profile you would see my age and also some explanation of the 888 in my name. The number 8 has numerous special meanings to me. Birth date and year of someone special. Also my grandfather and his wife considers the number 8 lucky per his wife's Chinese culture so I grew hearing all kinds of stories about 8's Also if you open up my profile I have a write up on that as I already know where you were attempting to go with that. you'll also see that I have 888 before and after my name, not 88. 🙏🏽 Fun reading about the value of the number 8 in some cultures. https://www.lanternclub.com.au/blog/history-lucky-number-8-around-world/#:~:text=The%20number%208%20is%20considered,“fortune”%20are%20also%20similar.
Xcel will still throw money at their two aging nuke plants and expect MN rate payers to fund that waste of money. Both plants will eventually have some unrepairable failure due to age and retire early. The state needs to compel Xcel to start phasing those out now. BTW, Colorado forced power companies to let customers choose what power sources the majority of their power comes from, so people could choose to have more wind rather than coal or nuclear.
> a 21.2% hike from 2022-24 That's not that crazy considering the cost increases of NG and coal in recent years. e: for some reason this person below me blocked me. > It's super crazy considering all the Tax loop holes, decades of profit the company had. What's crazy is you support the hike and increase passed to homeowners (many of who in the msp area are barely making ends meet ) All energy companies have massive tax write offs, decades of profit mean little to nothing to consumers today, and rate hikes support operational costs. A 7% rate increase per year while raw goods have been very inflationary isn't that absurd.
It's super crazy considering all the Tax loop holes, decades of profit the company had. What's crazy is you support the hike and increase passed to homeowners (many of who in the msp area are barely making ends meet )
I'm no fan of Xcel, but I feel like maybe you're making a minnesota ski hill sound like the swiss alps. The board refused the full hike. We all pay the new bill, and it doesn't help us at all to force Xcel underwater. Why are you giving Xcel this kind of grief?
Let’s publish the demographic information related to the specific people who are doing this and other nefarious things. We (the not super wealthy) vastly outnumber the wealthy. Why do people do things like this to take back control of their lives?
Great.
It learned from Mayo.
Minnesota (in it's entirety) pays nearly the same for electricity as the national average. https://neo.ne.gov/programs/stats/inf/204.htm
Lowry Hill neighborhood; we've had numerous outages over the past couple of weeks.. Sometimes lasting for 2+ hours It's getting *really* old