Xcel to provide $500 bill credits to customers with high past due balances

Xcel will be providing $2 million in bill credits to 4,000 residential electric customers with high past-due balances.  

In December, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) ordered Xcel to use $2 million of shareholder funds to provide $500 bill credits to 4,000 electric customers with the largest outstanding past due balances. Eligible customers can expect to automatically see these credits applied to their Xcel bill sometime in the next few months. 

This decision stems from annual reporting Xcel is required to do regarding various service-related metrics, including the number of customer complaints received and the percentage of customer service calls answered in 20 seconds or less. Xcel failed to meet the standards for both of these metrics and was fined a total of $2 million.  

While all regulated Minnesota utilities are required to file yearly service quality reports, Xcel is currently the only utility required to pay a $1 million penalty for underperformance of a metric. This underperformance payment framework originally comes from a 2003 settlement agreement between Xcel, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, and the Office of the Attorney General which sought to address systemic customer service and reliability issues found within Xcel.  

In reviewing Xcel’s performance this year, the Company also requested changes to some of the underlying metrics that CUB believes would have weakened the utility’s incentive to provide quality service. For example, Xcel requested to change the threshold for which customer complaints could be counted towards the reporting metric, and how many customer complaints could be filed before a penalty would be assessed. Under Xcel’s proposal, it would be easier for the company to avoid paying penalties, even if the number of customer complaints continued to rise.  

CUB joined other ratepayer advocates and government agencies in pushing back against Xcel's request, arguing that the metrics should remain as they are. CUB also recommended that the penalty amount for violations be increased—at minimum to account for inflation. Because the $1 million penalty was initially set in 2013, the amount may no longer provide sufficient motivation for Xcel to prioritize compliance with service quality standards. The PUC ultimately decided to open a separate proceeding to investigate what changes are needed to Xcel’s current service quality framework to better incentivize the utility to maintain a reasonable standard of service. We anticipate that process to take place sometime in 2026. CUB will continue to engage actively on this issue to ensure Xcel is held accountable for providing adequate service to its customers.