DENVER — If there is one universal complaint that we have heard from Xcel customers, it is about their smart meters.
Those meters allow Xcel to know exactly when you use your electricity, and then charge you based on the time of day you use it.
That type of billing was meant to change your habit of when you use electricity. Soon, you'll have to learn a new habit.
For time of use billing, Xcel customers pay the highest price for electricity during the week from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
There is a mid-peak billing timeframe from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. during the week.
All other times and on weekends and holidays, customers pay the lowest electricity rate.
As part of Xcel Energy’s electric rate increase request, the company provided the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with data that shows in 2025 and 2030, the time period customers should be conserving energy will be later in the day, when more people are home.
“The more appropriate peak demand periods for time of use rates and demand charges may be weekdays between 6 [p.m.] and 9 [p.m.],” PUC Commissioner Chairman Eric Blank, said at the PUC’s most recent weekly hearing. “My concern is that the current periods may increasingly lead to perverse results that encourage customers to shift load at the wrong times.”
The data from Xcel shows that solar-generated power, which is cheaper, will be generated at a higher amount in the 3 p.m., 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. hours in 2025 and 2030. Right now, customers are encouraged to conserve in that timeframe. That means that the time of use goal of encouraging conservation, by charging the highest rate, might need to begin at 6 p.m. and go until 9 p.m.
“We have to acknowledge that we are getting people used to and educating them about something that we know is not right, we know is not accurate,” PUC Commissioner Megan Gilman said.
Any changes to the time of use time frames will not happen this year, and Xcel has told the PUC that it does not want it to happen for several reasons.
“[Xcel] objects to changing to periods now, because doing so would require a modified customer educational program, which the company claims could lead to customer confusion and dissatisfaction,” a PUC staffer told the commissioners.
The PUC set a timeframe for Xcel to make a filing about changing the time periods by September, with a goal of getting them in place by May 2025.
Separately in the electric rate increase request, Xcel provided the PUC collective data that customers have asked for individually.
Xcel showed that 310,000 time of use customers in a one-year period from 2022-23, would have saved, on average, 21 cents if they were billed at the flat rate option instead of the time of use billing that changes based on the time of day.
Customers have reached out to Next with Kyle Clark wanting to know how they can figure out which option is best for them. In July, Xcel said that if a customer switches to a flat rate, it is unable to provide the data for time of use data on that customer’s bill.
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