Denver (April 9, 2024) – Xcel Energy crews are wrapping up work to restore power outages caused by the extreme wind event over the weekend, bringing all affected customers who can receive service back online.
“We greatly appreciate our customers’ patience as our crews worked throughout the extreme wind event to restore power,” said Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy—Colorado. “We recognize that being without this essential service brings challenges. We are all learning to live with the reality of new, extreme weather events that can affect the grid. We’re grateful that our customers and our crews were able to remain safe.”
Starting Saturday afternoon, the storm led to outages for a total of 194,000 customers, including 55,000 customers whose service was turned off to help protect public safety. Some wind-related outages were resolved on Saturday, and by Sunday morning, about 155,000 customers were without power.
Areas experiencing the most outages included the Southwest Metro, Arvada, and Boulder foothills, which sustained damage from winds that gusted up to nearly 100 miles per hour.
Xcel Energy used two tools to help protect customers from the threat of wildfire that such weather can bring. For the first time in Colorado, Xcel Energy conducted a public safety power shutoff, impacting 55,000 customers whose electric service was turned off Saturday as a public safety measure. More than 600 miles of lines were proactively de-energized.
The company also used wildfire safety settings on the system. Typically, when an issue causes a power outage on a line, such as a tree branch contacting a power line, equipment on the system will attempt to restore power automatically, usually within a few seconds. During this extreme weather event, Xcel Energy changed the settings in many areas to prevent the automatic restoration of power. Lines had to be patrolled and visually inspected to make sure it was safe to restore service, which means power outages lasted longer than if the system automatically restored power.
“These tools add an additional layer of safety for our customers, and new challenges to help our customers prepare for upcoming extreme weather events where we’ll use these tools,” said Kenney. “We learned a lot from this storm. We will be working with our communities and customers to further enhance the way we communicate when these tools will be used, and why. Importantly, we believe the actions we took during this wind event prevented a wildfire and protected our customers and communities.”
Customers can update how they receive notifications on outages and restoration by updating their information on the My Xcel Energy mobile app or by calling Customer Care at 1-800-895-1999.
Stay informed
If outages occur, it’s important for customers to have access to the most recent updates about their power restoration. Customers can stay informed by using the My Xcel Energy mobile app or visiting the Xcel Energy website. The website hosts an outage map that displays information on the number of customers out and anticipated time for restoration when available. Customers can also stay informed by following Xcel Energy on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter.
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About Xcel Energy:
Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL) provides the energy that powers millions of homes and businesses across eight Western and Midwestern states. Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company is an industry leader in responsibly reducing carbon emissions and producing and delivering clean energy solutions from a variety of renewable sources at competitive prices. For more information, visit xcelenergy.com or follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Facebook.