DENVER — Update: You have the power to make a power company make a change.
When we reported on the mass phone calls being made by Xcel Energy last month, the company said it would change the wording of the recording to make it not confusing.
The part that was confusing was that it seemed like Xcel was calling to let you know the power was about to go off when it was anything but that.
Thanks to you, Xcel has made that change.
Original story:
The next time customers' power is shut off on purpose, Xcel Energy is supposed to over-communicate ahead of time.
An automated call going out to Xcel's 1.6 million customers in Colorado sounds like a public safety power shutoff (PSPS) is about to happen. It is not.
"At Xcel Energy, your safety is our priority,” the automated message begins.
"We're offering proactive outage notifications to customers in advance for planned, power shutoffs,” the message continues.
“I think it was our first time proactively contacting our customers, "Hollie Velasquez Horvath, Xcel’s Regional Vice President, said. "As of right now, actually, we are reevaluating our call script. We are rewriting it to make sure that we have better clarity and not confusing our customers that it is a PSPS event.”
The phone message has been delivered to 350,000 of 1.6 million customers so far.
Xcel started the calls in mid-June and expected to deliver the calls over two-and-a-half months.
The purpose was not to notify of a public safety power shutoff or confuse about a power safety power shutoff.
It was to identify customers who needed power for medical purposes.
"We automatically enrolled you in outage notifications for your electrical service," the message said. "If you have medical equipment in your home, you can opt into receiving additional proactive notifications.”
“We've not been proactive as we are right now in calling to ask customers to call in and enroll,” Velasquez Horvath said.
This is in direct response to feedback from the Public Utilities Commission, which wanted Xcel to have a database of medical customers to better prepare for power shutoffs.
“They will have an advance notification, 72 hours in advance, to help better prepare,” Velasquez Horvath said.
Enrolling in Xcel’s medical assistance program does not prevent that customer’s power from being shut off. It will give that customer advanced notice, and if they meet certain criteria, it could give them access to lower electric rates.
Xcel has electric and gas customers, but not every customer gets both from Xcel. A gas customer told 9NEWS they received the message about electric power shutoffs.
“We actually called all of our customers, whether you have gas or electric because we have outages no matter what, whether it's a PSPS or not, so we can also help our gas customers if there is a longer duration outage for storms or other outages in the future,” Velasquez Horvath said.
The automated message also said that Xcel automatically enrolled the customer in outage notifications. That does not violate the "Do Not Call" list.
“When you have an established relationship with a company, they can communicate with you in ways that include automatic enrollments or emails,” Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser said.
Weiser explained that the calls are OK, but they should also provide an opt-out.
“The practice that we would, obviously, encourage all companies to do is to make sure consumers know they can always opt-out if they don't want certain messages,” Weiser said. “Companies should explain why they're communicating and give people a chance to say ‘no, thank you.’”