Ratepayers United of Colorado, LLC (“RUC”)[1], was founded under the conviction that it is in the long term financial interest, and critical to the safety and quality-of-life of ratepayers, to stop building coal plants and to develop renewable electric generation resources and efficiency measures to meet our future electricity demands.
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To this end, RUC intervenes in actions before the Public Utilities Commission of Colorado ("PUC"), which is where decisions regarding acquisition and financing of electric generation resources of publicly owned utilities are made in Colorado. We work with other parties, including Public Service Company of Colorado (aka Xcel) (“PSCo”), industry and non-profits, in PUC actions on issues of common interest. However, we also attempt to educate the parties and aggressively oppose them where they promote development of generating facilities that endanger people and the planet. In addition, we educate legislators, the press and the public on issues before the PUC and more generally regarding the environmental and financial impacts of reliance on fossil fuels and how they can be replaced with renewables and efficiency. |
RUC was originally formed as the only group to stand up to PSCo, a very hostile PUC, the Owens state government, mining companies, steel companies and other corporate interests in the 2006 Rate Case. When ProgressNow initially announced our opposition to the case, they received about 4000 e-mails in support of our cause – more than ProgressNow had ever received in response to any of its actions. In the Rate Case, the PUC attempted to rubber-stamp a decision inappropriately made in the previous Least Cost Planning process. This decision allowed PSCo to charge its ratepayers for the costs of building the Comanche 3 coal plant four years before it was even built. It also shifted all risks and liabilities of PSCo’s decision to build the coal plant onto ratepayers. Meanwhile, the shareholders reap all profits. The financing decision had not only been made in an inappropriate docket, it violated Colorado Supreme Court precedent that power plants must be “used and useful” before they are includable in electric rates. The coal plant, also approved in the previous Least Cost Plan, will emit 6 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year - half as much CO2 as all the cars in Colorado do now - for the next 50 years.
| Despite much opposition, in the Rate Case we:
● Opposed PSCo’s financing plan; ● Opposed its requested incentive to obtain more energy from coal: ● Revealed the folly of shifting financial risks from PSCo to ratepayers, which gives PSCo further incentive to underestimate the actual costs of coal generation during the approval process; ● Pierced through the veil of secrecy that had become the norm for the decision-making process at the PUC; ● Revealed the extent of the on-going railroad crises hindering coal delivery locally and nationally and costing PSCo ratepayers over $50 million in recent months – and PSCo’s total lack of planning to address the problem in the face of its increasing demands for more coal deliveries; ● Educated the PUC staff and other parties about global climate change; ● Participated with other groups to organize a press conference and a demonstration against the rate increase and coal plant; ● Became a regular source for the press to contact in reference to energy issues at the PUC; ● To the dismay of the PUC, successfully insisted that the public overflowing the hearing room be able to comment on its objections to the coal plant and in support of our positions. ● Introduced Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) to the PUC on which it has since held an educational workshop; and ● Persistently raised the issues that the PUC and PSCo had worked hard to ignore. |
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Since then, we have intervened in a number of PUC dockets. Among other accomplishments, we have:
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● helped quash the construction of a second conventional coal plant; ● opposed PUC staff’s efforts to convert the mandatory goals of Colorado’s Renewable Energy Standards into caps; ● assisted in the development of new efficiency and resource planning rules that are more conducive to the development of renewable energy and efficiency and incorporate the costs of global climate change and other environmental costs into the cost-benefit analysis; and ● questioned the development of an 8 MW solar facility in lieu of a larger facility that would produce more electricity at close to half the cost per kilowatt hour. |
In addition, together with our member, Clean Energy Action, we have convinced a legislator, Judy Solano, to introduce a bill promoting CSP in the next legislative session.
In all of our activities, we will be promoting actions that lead to statewide reduction of CO2 emissions from all sources of at least 25% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, and opposing actions that compromise that goal. We believe that the electric utility industry has the greatest potential of all sectors to achieve significant reductions - through DSM and renewable sources. We are therefore pushing PSCo and the PUC to develop uniquely aggressive targets.
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PSCo has announced plans to build up to a 600 MW coal gasification (IGCC) plant, misleadingly referred to by supporters as “Clean Coal.” If PSCo moves forward with such plans, the plant will be proposed in the upcoming Resource Planning docket. We will almost certainly be the only organization participating in the docket that will oppose IGCC. This technology does nothing to reduce CO2 emissions of traditional coal plants unless the CO2 is sequestered, but due to inefficiencies, will actually increase emissions. Its elusive promise of capturing and sequestering the 1.5 billion tons of CO2 emitted by coal plants per year in the United States, is at least 10 years off and may never be done without leakage or devastating impacts to the stability of the Earth’s surface. Moreover, IGCC, even without CO2 capture and sequestration, is more expensive than solar or wind energy. Increasing governmental subsidies of IGCC will divert much needed funds for research and development of truly clean and renewable generation resources. |
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RUC is leading the charge for a revolutionary change in the way we generate and use electricity in Colorado. While we have accomplished a great deal with essentially all volunteer efforts, we cannot put in the amount of time and effort necessary to accomplish our future goals on pro bono efforts alone. Thus, we ask for your support.
[1] Ratepayers United of Colorado, LLC is a Colorado nonprofit corporation with 501(c)(3) status. We have also registered the name of “Coloradoans for Clean Energy,” or “COforCE.”