Xcel Energy Inc. has taken heat for charging Minnesota ratepayers for lavish entertainment expenses, but it also operates costly airplanes that ferry around top brass and other employees almost daily, primarily between Denver and St. Paul -- with ratepayers picking up the tab.
The Minneapolis-based utility leases two eight-seat Learjets that cost about $1,200 an hour to fly. The near-daily weekday flights -- with the two planes even passing each other in the air -- have attracted attention as the Minneapolis-based utility seeks to raise utility rates in Minnesota and Colorado.
Almost all of Xcel's $5.8 million annual corporate aviation budget for operating and maintaining the two planes is charged back to ratepayers in the eight states where it does business. About $2.2 million of that gets charged back to Xcel's electricity customers in Minnesota, with about $150,000 of it rolled into the rates it charges for gas, according to Judy Poferl, president and CEO of subsidiary Northern States Power Co.-Minnesota. That's about 4.5 cents out of the typical monthly residential electric bill of $77.23 going to cover Xcel's business aircraft, she said.
The corporate shuttles help Xcel operate efficiently, she said. Xcel has major operations in Colorado, and the money the utility has saved by merging with Denver's New Century Energies in 1999 has more than offset the aircraft costs, she said.
But at least one Minnesotan on the ground isn't so sure.
Spotted from backyard
Dan Pomrenke, who described himself as an aviation buff, said he's been tracking Xcel's flights on an Internet-based service called FlightAware for about a year. He and his son first spotted the jets from their backyard in Lakeville. They looked up the planes on FlightAware to see where they were coming from or who owned them. Pomrenke was struck by the frequency of Xcel's flights, and alerted reporters.
Pomrenke isn't an Xcel customer. But he's outraged over what he considers wasteful spending by the utility.