Colorado Politics published a recent Gazette editorial about the high cost of utility bills in Pueblo and implied President Joe Biden and renewable energy were to blame. The problem is not the cost of renewable energy (or President Biden’s infrastructure and investment policies). The problem is the structure of monopoly utilities like Black Hills, which serves Pueblo and the Arkansas Valley, and Xcel Energy, which serves a little more than half of Colorado, including the Denver metro area.

The readily available facts are that renewable sources like wind, solar and storage cost well under 4 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh), but the monopolies want to keep driving up their returns to shareholders so they find endless ways to “gold plate” the system.

I’ve watched the process at the Colorado Public Utilities for close to the last 20 years; believe me, it isn’t pretty. After adding endless costs, utilities like Black Hills and Xcel charge us well more than 12 cents-per-kwh for a product they can buy for 4 cents-per-kwh.

Xcel’s profits have soared while sales have stayed flat for the last 20 years. It is good business if you can get it – but you can’t because the monopolies that Xcel and Black Hills have are being protected by those that want to curry favor with these powerful entities.

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The problem is not the transition to renewable energy. Utilities that don’t have shareholders like Xcel and Black Hills do are often making the transition and keeping rates flat or even providing rate decreases.

Colorado needs to allow competition in investor-owned territories including those of Xcel and Black Hills, but again, powerful entities are protecting their monopoly status.

Don’t blame the clean-energy transition (or the president) for a problem that lies with the monopolies that Xcel and Black Hills are guarding fiercely – to the detriment of everyone in Colorado that is paying monopoly prices to support the huge profits Xcel and Black Hills are taking from our state.

Leslie Glustrom

Boulder

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