Base revenues are proposed to increase by $94.4 million, while fuel and purchased power revenue will decline by $33.1 million primarily due to the fuel savings from Lea Power Partners’s Hobbs generating station near Hobbs, New Mexico. Xcel Energy will purchase the output of the new plant once it comes online in summer 2008.
Individual classes of customers will see varying changes in rates. Residential customers, for example, will see a 10% overall rate increase after fuel costs savings are counted, or approximately $10.33 per month on an average 1,000kWh bill.
Base rates would only rise after a review by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the municipalities served by Xcel Energy in Texas, a process that could take up to six months.
David Eves, president and CEO of the Southwestern Public Service Company, said: We are in the middle of a historic growth cycle. We must meet the needs of a growing economy, increasing electrical demands, a burgeoning wind power industry and, at the same time, build efficiencies into our traditional generating and transmission resources. These are efforts designed to bring down high fuel costs.
