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Jul 16, 2008 10:47 am US/Mountain

Xcel Energy: Up To 72,000 Could Be Shut Off In '08

Reporting
Jodi Brooks
DENVER (AP) ― Xcel Energy expects to turn off power to 47,000 Colorado customers in the second and third quarters this year because they failed to pay their bill on time.

That number is a 140 percent increase compared to the same period in 2005 when the utility shut off power to 19,537 customers. The increase comes as Xcel rates have increased the last six months to cover the cost of coal and natural gas.

Skip Arnold, executive director of Energy Outreach Colorado, said the bills are putting on a strain on low-income families.

The Minneapolis company has about 1.6 million customers in Colorado. It is the largest electric and natural-gas utility in the state.

Xcel Energy spokesman Tom Henley said the utility is averaging about 1,000 disconnects per week and that they're on pace for an estimated 72,000 this year. Henley said he didn't have the total of disconnects for 2007.

"It's in everyone's best interest for us to look at trying to essentially get rid of customers that aren't going to pay their bills so everyone else doesn't have to pick up the price," said Henley.

Henley said by June, about 85 percent of customers who had delinquent accounts had been reconnected.

(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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