| Type | Public (NYSE: XEL) S&P 500 Component |
|---|---|
| Industry | Electricity and Natural Gas Utility |
| Founded | 1909 |
| Headquarters | Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Key people | Benjamin G.S. Fowke III, Chairman, CEO, and President |
| Revenue | US$11.2 billion (FY 2008)[1] |
| Operating income | US$1.42 billion (FY 2008)[1] |
| Net income | US$646 million (FY 2008)[1] |
| Total assets | US$25.0 billion (FY 2008) [2] |
| Employees | 11,351 (2011)[3] |
| Website | www.xcelenergy.com |
Xcel Energy, Inc. (NYSE: XEL) is a public utility company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving customers in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. Primary services are electricity and natural gas. Operating companies include Northern States Power Company, Public Service Company of Colorado[4], and Southwestern Public Service Co.[5]
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One example: Sherburne County, Becker, Minnesota (Sherco) Plant
Fuel Source: Low-sulfur Western coal from mines in Montana and Wyoming. The plant burns 30,000 tons of coal every day (three trainloads) and more than nine million tons a year. A rotary car dumper, which literally turns a rail coal car upside down, unloads one car every three minutes and an entire train in just over six hours.[4]
According to the Annual Wind Industry Report for year-end 2008 published by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Xcel Energy is the largest investor-owned wind power provider.[5] In 2010, 3.4 GW of their energy production was provided by wind power.[6]. They own and operate three winds farms:
Since 1998, Xcel Energy's Windsource program has allowed its customers to designate that part or all of their electricity comes from from a renewable energy source.[6] In Minnesota, for example, Xcel Energy has 64 wind turbines dedicated to Windsource customers, generating 90 MW. In 2010, Windsource subscribers paid a net premium of $0.90 in addition to their standard rate for every 100 kWh they purchased through the program.[7].
Xcel Energy is fifth in the nation for solar power capacity according to the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA)[8] and manages a fast-growing program in Colorado called Solar*Rewards that offers rebates to residential and business customers for installing on-site solar systems.[9] Applications for the program increased significantly in 2008, and the program is expanding to New Mexico.[10] Xcel Energy has announced plans to acquire up to 600 megawatts of concentrating solar power, with storage capability (SEPA).[11]
Xcel Energy generates over 500 megawatts of hydroelectric power from 27 plants in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Colorado. This accounts for more than four percent of their electricity generation. They also purchase large amounts of hydro-generated electricity from Manitoba Hydro.[12]
Biomass electricity comes from organic fuel sources. Xcel Energy has contracts for about 110 megawatts of electricity from biomass generators. Two in northern Minnesota are fueled by forest harvest residue, such as treetops and limbs. A third facility, brought on line in 2007 in western Minnesota, generates power using turkey litter.[10]
Xcel Energy's Bay Front plant in Ashland, Wisconsin, is a three-unit generating station that has become a model for the creative use of fuels: coal, waste wood, railroad ties, discarded tires, natural gas, and petroleum coke. Two of the three Bay Front operating units already use biomass as their primary fuel. Following more than a year of study and planning, Xcel Energy recently proposed a plan to install biomass gasification technology at Bay Front.[10]
The waste-to-energy facilities not only produce electricity but also play an important role in using waste that would otherwise end up in landfills. All of the waste-to-energy facilities have upgraded air quality control systems to meet stringent environmental emission regulations.[10] The Wisconsin waste-to-energy plant burns wood waste in combination with refuse-derived fuel (RDF).
Xcel Energy owns and operates two nuclear power plants, Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant near Monticello, Minnesota, and Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant near Red Wing, Minnesota and stores the spent fuel from these nuclear plants on site in independent spent fuel storage installations. (ISFSIs).[13]
Xcel is seeking to extend the operating licenses for the Prairie Island plants for 20 years to 2034, increasing the number of spent fuel casks at the Prairie Island ISFSI to 64 casks.[13] In November 2009, the license was granted by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to rule on Xcel's application in 2010. [14]
Xcel Energy operates 18,100 miles (29,100 km) of transmission lines throughout ten states, and has nearly 900 transmission and transmission/distribution substations, with major control centers in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Golden, Colorado; and Amarillo, Texas.[10] The transmission system is operated on a non-discriminatory basis under the open access requirements of the federal government. This means that all wholesale buyers and sellers of electricity can use the transmission system under the same terms and conditions used to serve Xcel Energy’s own retail customers.[10] The transmission lines are utilized to carry 115,000 volts, 230,000 volts, and 345,000 volts. There is also a 500,000 volt transmission line that runs from Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada to Chisago County just north of St. Paul, Minnesota.[10]
Xcel Energy, with headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a major U.S. electric and natural gas utility. The company provides energy to more than 3.3 million electric customers and 1.8 million natural gas customers in eight states: Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin.
Xcel Energy was built on three companies: Minneapolis-based Northern States Power Company (NSP), Denver-based Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo), and Amarillo-based Southwestern Public Service (SPS).[10]
On June 1, 2011, in an almost unprecedented case, Xcel Energy has been charged in Federal Court over the deaths of five contractors during a fire at its Cabin Creek Hydroelectric power plant outside Georgetown, Colorado. Xcel is accused of allowing hazardous conditions to exist at the work site that directly contributed to a flash fire that took the lives of the workers. It is quite unusual that a corporation would be tried in a criminal proceeding.[15]
On June 28th, the jury found Xcel Energy not guilty. The case against the contractor, RPI, has yet to be argued.[16]
The story of NSP begins with Thomas Edison’s protégé Henry Marison Byllesby, who in 1902 established H.M. Byllesby and Co. The Chicago-based conglomerate owned steamships, streetcars, and utility companies from West Virginia to California. In 1909, Byllesby came to Stillwater, Minnesota, and established Consumers Power Co.
The Colorado Power Co. and its subsidiary Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power in Wyoming came under the PSCo name on September 3, 1924. PSCo became an independent and autonomous operation in November 1943 when it served 80 percent of Colorado’s gas and electricity needs. As demand for energy continued to grow, so did PSCo. Eventually, the company merged with Southwestern Public Service Co. (SPS), based in Amarillo, Texas, to form New Century Energies (NCE) in 1995.[17]
Southwestern Public Service Co. (SPS) dates its origins to 1904 and the Pecos Valley in New Mexico when Maynard Gunsell received an electricity franchise for the city of Roswell, New Mexico and its 2,000 residents. The financial strain of creating this new enterprise soon overwhelmed him and he sold the franchise to W.H. Gillenwater, who named his utility the Roswell Electric Light Co. He later sold the company to an investment firm in Cleveland, Ohio, which already owned the Roswell Gas Co.
The company has naming rights for the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is the home of the Minnesota Wild professional hockey team and hosted the 2008 Republican National Convention.[18]
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