St. Paul, Minnesota — At its December 17, 2020 agenda meeting, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel Energy’s (Xcel) rate case stay-out proposal filed on September 15, 2020, resulting in Xcel’s commitment to withdraw its pending rate case. Considering the economic impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on all ratepayers, the stay-out will ensure base rates for all consumers remain unchanged for 2021. As a condition of approving the stay-out request, the Commission also accepted Xcel’s commitment to increase its contribution towards funding the Residential Payment Plan Credit Program from $8.75 million, to $17.5 million, which is currently pending Commission approval. If approved, the payment plan credits would be available to certain Xcel residential customers with arrearage balances between $1,000 and $4,000.

The PUC approved Xcel’s request to extend the sales true-up for all customer classes. To ensure expenses remain reasonable for Xcel’s business customers during the pandemic and economic slowdown, the PUC required Xcel to provide an option for calculating the sales true-up separately for business subclasses based on the sales changes of each subclass. The stay-out decision also provides an additional rate mitigation for business owners by extending the recovery period for any surcharge from 12 months to 21 months.

“The approval of the rate case stay-out proposal benefits all Minnesotans, protecting residential consumers from a rate hike during a challenging time, while ensuring expenses remain reasonable for business customers,” said Commissioner John Tuma. “This is a balanced proposal responding to the hardships that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon the state,” said Commissioner Joe Sullivan.

The PUC’s decision also allows Xcel to continue its annual property tax and capital projects true-ups, and maintains Xcel’s annual contribution to the nuclear decommissioning trust at $14,030,831 per year, and maintains the end-of-life accrual at $2,087,026 per year, amounts currently included in base rates.

About

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission regulates three cornerstone service industries in Minnesota's economy; electricity, natural gas and telephone. The Commission’s mission is to create and maintain a regulatory environment that ensures safe, adequate and efficient utility services at fair, reasonable rates consistent with State telecommunications and energy policies. It does so by providing independent, consistent, professional and comprehensive oversight and regulation of utility service providers Learn more at mn.gov/puc

Please contact Will Seuffert, 651-201-2217 or will.seuffert@state.mn.us if you have any questions.

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