Published May 26, 2021 This past February, severe cold weather in Texas and the Midwest caused natural gas prices to spike nationwide. The price spike was caused by a “perfect storm” of: (i) increased demand (many households rely on natural gas for heat), (ii) reduced supply (some gas pipelines literally froze up in Texas and…
May 13, 2021 Star Tribune Mike Hughlett Steep bills for natural gas customers during a crippling winter storm in February could end with some changes in what’s allowed for Minnesota utilities if two state agencies have anything to say about it. The Minnesota Department of Commerce says consumers are being socked with $90 million in…
April 22, 2021 The Washington Post Will Englund When that big freeze hit Texas in February, the Lone Star State couldn’t help but share its pain. With its ill-equipped natural gas systems clocked by the cold, Texas’s exports across the Rio Grande froze up and 4.7million customers in northern Mexico went without electricity — more…
Published April 2, 2021 Two weeks ago, I wrote about proposed legislation to help consumers weather a dramatic spike in the price of natural gas that occurred in February. The issue is moving forward in both the legislative and regulatory arenas, so I am back with an update. The severe cold weather that hit Texas…
March 18, 2021 MinnPost Walker Orenstein The severe cold in the southern U.S. last month will result in higher natural gas bills for a huge swath of Minnesotans. In response, a pair of Minnesota lawmakers have introduced a bill at the Legislature to help low-income people shoulder the extra costs. The new measure would distribute…
March 17, 2021 Star Tribune Mike Hughlett CenterPoint Energy is proposing to spread the cost of a colossal natural gas price spike — $354 per household on average — over two years to help cushion the blow to Minnesota consumers and the company itself. The deep freeze that paralyzed Texas last month ignited U.S. wholesale…
Published March 16, 2021 This week, the committees responsible for energy in the Minnesota House and Senate will hear identical bills aimed at addressing the severe spike in the price of natural gas that affected Minnesota gas utilities in February. The severe cold weather in Texas and the Midwest last month caused the price of…
If you follow this blog, you know that Xcel is in the midst of its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the map of where Xcel will get its electricity from for the next 15 years. If you’re an Xcel customer, you care about clean energy, and/or you don’t want to be charged millions too much on…
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has unanimously denied Xcel’s request to purchase the Mankato Energy Center power plant. The PUC agreed with CUB that Xcel failed to show that spending $650 million was in the public interest and, crucially, that the utility was attempting to sidestep crucial regulatory processes in place to protect consumers from…
Since the beginning of this year, CUB has been monitoring the proposal by Xcel Energy to purchase a 720-megawatt gas power plant in Mankato: the Mankato Energy Center (MEC). For over seven months, parties like CUB, the Department of Commerce, the Office of the Attorney General, the City of Minneapolis, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance,…
