NEWS RELEASE
PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
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The Public Utilities Commission will host a virtual public comment hearing on the power outages that occurred across the front range in early April. This public meeting is one of several actions the PUC is taking to understand customer and stakeholder experiences leading up to and throughout the outages.
When: Wednesday, April 17 2024 at 4:00 p.m., and continuing until all participants have been heard.
Click here to register to speak at the hearing: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUpcu-gqDIqHdXYbGLG7r7I63958vLGB3cG#/registration
A livestream of the hearing will be available at https://www.youtube.com/@COPublicUtilitiesCommission/featured (YouTube recordings are also available after the meeting.)
Comments are also welcome anytime on the Commission’s online platform.
Why:
Over the weekend of April 6-7, Colorado experienced a weather event that brought wind gusts of nearly 100 mph in some areas of the state and sustained high winds throughout the weekend. Approximately 168,000 people across 9 counties were without power statewide during the event. 55,000 of these were the result of an intentional, precautionary outage, known as a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS), conducted by Xcel to reduce the possibility of wildfire. This was the first deployment of a PSPS in the state. The other impacted customers were the result of severe damage to portions of the electrical grid that required repair before customer service could be restored. The Commission formally opened an investigation into the outages on Apr 10, 2024.
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