Working for a customer-owned utility, I love sharing cost-saving stories related to grants, internal efficiencies and innovative programs. However, these stories understandably generate questions such as, “Will we see our rates go down as a result?” and “If I don’t see a credit on my bill, then why should I care?”
While these cost-savings efforts don’t result in immediate rate reductions or bill credits, they have major long-term benefits, such as reducing future rate increases, maintaining service reliability and maximizing efficiency.
Grant dollars that help fund any percentage of critical projects across our four services are huge, especially at a time when we must acquire new resources and build new plants, pipes and wires.
In 2024, we’ve received more than $14 million in grant funds (see sidebar) to help fund several important projects to include the undergrounding of an electric line that serves two critical water treatment plants and the replacement of 314 aging natural gas service lines in older neighborhoods.
As a four-service utility we are fortunate to have access to internal technical knowledge that many other utilities do not. For example, many of our employees possess unique technical expertise that help us bypass hiring outside contractors to install new equipment or perform maintenance on existing plants, wires and pipes.
Internal resources like our apparatus shop help us navigate ongoing supply chain challenges and maintain reliability by rehabilitating existing equipment such as electric transformers, rather than purchasing new at a much higher cost and with major delays.
Our involvement in innovative resource sharing pools like the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) helped us save more than $4 million in energy costs over the last year or so. These cost savings are realized thanks to energy-related purchases through SPP that are below our cost to generate electricity locally and market sales of excess power generation.
SPP helps us manage costs over the long term and keep our system reliable, even as customer needs change and competition for resources and transmission lines increases in Colorado and beyond.
The bottom line: We are better off accessing and embracing grants, internal efficiencies and innovation rather than not seeking them at all – even if they don’t offer immediate rate relief. In most cases these efforts insulate you from even higher rates in the future and offer many other transcendent benefits such as safer and more reliable service.