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)ur community would be its customers ' ,eyond the term of the previous franchise," said Driskell. Weaver's assessment is more philosophical. "Stranded assets may be a concept whose time has passed. I believe the last stranded asset determination was in the late 1990s,part of the deregulation pro- cess. What if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission comes back and said there are no stranded assets any more?There's lots of interested speculation out there." The longer-term battle is about to be joined."What we are seeing at present,"said McGrath,"is that Xcel is really not interested in trying to negotiate a settlement. They in- tend to fight both of these—condemnation and stranded costs—with a lot of resources. We expect a tough fight.' — Xcel also sees little hope for negotiation , 01 1 o EPC Et BOP construction for wind, solar, now that the vote has passed, but for dif- and transmission ferent reasons. "They had a good campaign message, namely to keep all of Boulder's o Ability to provide full turnkey solutions, options open and to use the vote to exert I including construction financing leverage on Xcel to negotiate," said Davis. o In-house expertise in design,engineering, "But we have to consider what 130 other cit- construction, and operations would do if we began a new process at point. As we told them, this vote does - Self-performance capabilities mean not open negotiation;it closes negotiation." N projects are on time and on budget The problem from Boulders point of c Full range of development services, view is that Xcel, a well-run company op- including wind Et solar resource erating within a highly structured model optimization It assistance with financing of utility regulation, offers limited options. Even though it is considered by many to o 5,700 MW of renewable energy since be an industry leader in terms of renewable 1997, including 500 miles of transmission energy,it faces in Boulder a community that r lines(single B;double circuit, up to 345kV) wants to go further and faster than Xcel,and ' o Experience in the U.S. and Canada wants a say in its own destiny. "We don't have a problem with Xcel so much as a problem with the existing regu- I Contact us to learn more about how we lated monopoly model and its ability to meet i can make your renewable energy project our community's energy goals,"said Driskell. ' a success! "The question is whether the existing util- ity model can adapt to deliver the future we want. We see the future being focused on energy management, in which utilities help customers use less of their `product.' That switches the focus from energy as a commod- ity to energy as a service. "As for the path to municipalization,we'll Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc. see. Our focus has always been about the 11101 W. 120th Ave. I Suite 400 anals, not the path, per se. We are looking Broomfield,CO 80021 1 303.439.4200 r way forward that gives us the greatest ° acKibility to respond to the changing ener- gy world and to achieve our environmental goals."R Public Power June 20 92 PublicPowerMedia.org 21