Xcel Energy wants Minnesotans to pay more for power.
The utility's rates would climb 15.2% over three years under a plan submitted to state regulators Friday, raising $466 million for a host of projects, from strengthening its electricity grid to bolstering its nuclear plants and opening new wind farms.
The plan from Minneapolis-based Xcel, Minnesota's largest power provider with about 1.3 million customers, would leave residential consumers paying an estimated $110 more per year for electricity by 2022 — a 10.6% increase. The biggest impact would come in 2020, the plan's first year.
Xcel's proposed hike "is more than I expected," said Annie Levenson-Falk, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota, an advocacy group for residential ratepayers. Still, she said it's "pretty early to make a blanket judgment."
Big rate cases often take regulators 18 months or longer to resolve, and utilities often receive less than their request. Xcel has asked the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for an interim rate increase of 4.1% for all customer classes — residential, commercial and industrial — that would take effect Jan. 1. Such interim increase requests are common, and the PUC usually grants them.
If the PUC eventually grants a rate hike that is lower than the interim increase, customers should get refunds.
Also Friday, the state's second-largest electric utility, Minnesota Power, asked state regulators for a 10.5% rate increase that would raise its average residential bill by more than $11 a month. Minnesota Power, with 145,000 customers, is asking for $65.9 million to cover increased costs and "significant lost sales" among some industrial and wholesale customers.
Given the PUC's crowded docket, Xcel is separately proposing that regulators extend components of its current rate plan through 2020. The company would then file its rate case next year. "We are putting that alternative out there for the commission to consider," said Christopher Clark, Xcel's president for Minnesota and the Dakotas.