DENVER — With temperatures forecast to exceed 100 degrees for at least three consecutive days, an Xcel Energy official said Thursday that the utility is not planning for any proactive power outages during this weekend’s heat wave.
“We are confident that we’re going to have the energy resources needed to meet our customers' needs,” said Andrew Holder, Xcel’s director of community relations and local government affairs. “We wouldn’t proactively de-energize our lines in response to a heat wave.”
In April, Xcel intentionally cut power to more than 100,000 homes on the Front Range due to a high wind storm in an effort to reduce wildfire risk. In some cases, customers were without power for more than three days, sparking concern now that the same thing might be coming with extreme heat.
“People were thinking it was just going to be for a day and then it wound up being three or four days,” Louisville resident Lisa Draper said.
Draper and her sister, Lesley, lost their home in the Marshall Fire in 2021 and just moved into their rebuilt house in May.
While the Draper sisters say they support proactive shutdowns to reduce fire risk, they hope for good communications from Xcel so they can plan accordingly.
Holder, however, stressed that no planned outages are coming.
“That is a tool of last resort here at Xcel Energy to mitigate wildfire risk,” he said.
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And Xcel is ramping up for any unexpected outages that may happen this weekend.
“Our operations teams are going to be around the clock to ensure that they can respond safely and efficiently to any outage that does occur over this weekend,” Holder said.
Xcel is also directing people to its website for tips to conserve energy to help protect the grid as temperatures rise.
Suggestions include, drawing shade or blinds to keep rooms cooler, turning off lights and running fans counterclockwise in the summer to circulate cooler air.
For a full list of tips, visit this link.
