DENVER — More than 150,000 Xcel Energy customers are without power after powerful winds wreaked havoc in the Denver area overnight.
Of those 150,000, an estimated 55,000 Xcel Energy customers in Colorado had their power purposely turned off Saturday over wildfire concerns amid dangerous winds. The storm also knocked out power in places, leaving about 100,000 customers in the dark, according to Xcel Energy.
Xcel Energy de-energized more than 600 miles of power lines at 3 p.m. Saturday. The planned outage will continue into at least Sunday, but exact outage restoration times will be contingent upon the extent of damages caused by the extreme winds.
The company said power restoration work due to high winds continues Sunday. Xcel said Crews are assessing damage now and will begin working to restore power in the impacted areas after the winds have died down.
The communities that are experiencing a power shutoff are primarily in Boulder County, small sections of Gilpin, Jefferson, Larimer, Douglas and Broomfield Counties, and the West Denver Metro area along the foothills, the company said in a news release.
Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy Colorado, said the company reached out to customers on Friday about Saturday’s public safety outage.
"We've made every effort to do outbound calls to the customers in those six counties. So last night, we started contacting those customers to give them a heads up of the potential for this, we follow that up again today," Kenney said during a press conference Saturday.
Today's Forecast
High Wind Warning continues for extreme winds on the plains and foothills
Additionally, Xcel Energy said it is currently operating the electric system “in a manner intended to enhance public safety and decrease the risk of wildfire,” according to a news release.
Typically, equipment on the electric system will attempt to restore power automatically within a few seconds if there’s an issue that causes a power outage on a line, such as when a tree branch falls on a line, a spokesperson said.
Xcel changed those settings in many areas this weekend to prevent power from coming back up due to the dangerous winds, warning customers outages may be more frequent and last longer than they typically would.
This is the first time the company has switched off power in Colorado ahead of a major wind event.
A disconnected Xcel Energy power line was partially blamed for sparking the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder County that spread fast amid wind gusts of up to 115 mph. More than 1,000 homes were destroyed and two people lost their lives.
A mass action lawsuit against Xcel Energy was filed last year, claiming the energy provider is to blame for the most destructive fire in Colorado history. However, the company maintains its equipment did not start the Marshall Fire.
