Utility Dive: Has Xcel Minnesota Designed the Ideal Residential Time of use Rate?

Article highlights Xcel Energy’s draft Time of Use Pilot, which was developed with input from a 6-month stakeholder engagement process convened by the Great Plains Institute and Center for Energy and Environment.

From Utility Dive

…Xcel’s objectives are to find out how to effectively engage customers and if price signals can get customers to shift energy usage away from the peak, Aakash Chandarana, Xcel VP of Rates and Regulatory Affairs, told Utility Dive. Utility surveys consistently find customers “don’t really care,” he said. “This pilot will allow Xcel to test what our customers truly want” …

…Xcel, Great Plains Institute and the Minnesota Center for Energy and the Environment convened a stakeholder group in May to work through the pilot’s details. Six intensive workshops were attended by the conveners, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the Minnesota Office of Attorney General, CUB, Fresh Energy, Stoel Rives attorneys, the Suburban Rate Authority and Energy CENTS Coalition. CUB’s Levinson-Falk said the collaborative stakeholder process helped her understand “where the utility is coming from” and she believes it helped the utility understand “where CUB and other stakeholders are coming from….

…Mike Bull, director of policy at Minnesota Center for Energy and the Environment and a former Xcel executive, also endorsed the pilot’s design and goals. It is the first project of the “learning by doing” phase of Minnesota’s e21 Initiative to bring state energy policy into the 21st century, he said…

Read the full article at Utility Dive