all right council members go ahead okay great all right well thank you first and foremost for having

us today uh look forward to diving in a little bit i just want to extend a thanks to council

member gilmore who invited us a month and a half ago to do this presentation so just a really quick

recap. So, Xcel Energy, we operate in eight states. One of the eight states that we serve

is Colorado. Colorado is our largest state that we serve. We've got 1.6 million electric customers,

1.7 million gas customers, and we range around the 99.97 reliability. And if you see on the map

there, the red pockets is actually our service territory. So, we are, I think of us as somewhat

like a T, right? So we've got the I-25, I-70 corridor and the service that we provide to

customers. I will also say that this does not reflect our operations. So we have a lot of

renewable generation coal plants that we are, you know, plan to retire by the end of 2031

transmission that we actually operate beyond the red area, mostly on the Eastern Plains.

So that's not reflected in this map.

So when we think about how we wake up every day and serve customers in our communities in Colorado,

we think about it as a continuous improvement.

We're always working to serve customers and our communities better.

And we think about that with delivering and trying to work toward achieving excellent service,

thinking about how we can improve our processes and make interactions with our company better

and improve, thinking about that we are the experts in operating an electric and gas system

for the state of Colorado. And what does that mean from an engineering, a science, a physics?

You know, we are the experts in running this system. And so how do we show up and help others

understand that and how are we helping our customers and our communities better understand

it as well. And then we're continuing to think about how we lead the clean energy transition.

So this is something that we started and embarked on starting in 2007. And we have obviously

integrated an enormous amount of renewables on our system over the last 20 years. And we're not

stopping. And even though I think that we're at a little bit of a crossroads, which we can talk

about later in this presentation, we still need to think about what does advanced technology

look like? How do we continue to think about how we deliver clean energy on our electric

and gas system moving forward? In addition to that, we also are always thinking about

how do we operate a system safe? What do we need to do for investments? How do we serve

our customers and ensure that our system, our electric and our gas system is safe.

How do we continue to deliver a king?

Ensuring that there always is that fundamental reliability on that pillar.

And then obviously affordability, which will continue to be such an important aspect of

what we have been doing over the last couple of years and thinking about how do we deliver

all of this energy?

How do we serve our customers and our communities?

ensure that it's safe, reliable, clean, and affordable. About seven or eight years ago,

I don't know if these are necessarily new goals, but they're goals that we've continued to work

toward and achieve. In 2018, we announced that we would work toward 100% carbon-free electric

system by 2050. We are still on track to deliver that and accomplish that. We also announced just

about a year and a half later after that, that we also need to think about our gas system

and reducing GHG emissions on our gas system and support our customers with that.

Sorry.

Okay.

And support our customers with the natural gas system and figuring out how we hold suppliers

accountable, minimize leaks on our LDC system as we're transmitting that gas to our customers,

and then working with our customers with demand side management, which is energy efficient

on the natural gas system and our work towards making sure that we achieve that net zero on the

natural gas system by 2050. And then in addition to the work with the state and coordinating really

closely with the state, when the state announced their goal to achieve, you know, a million electric

vehicles on the ground by 2030, we obviously understand our responsibility to that, ensuring

that we've got infrastructure in place and we are empowering potentially that goal at the state level.

And so our work in how we advance and support our customers and our communities

to enable them for clean transportation in the future.

So the electric system has changed in the last 40 years.

And this is kind of somewhat as we enter into this new world of demand and low growth on the system.

So this is a really good graph that just shows how our demand, the electric demand and the gas demand for energy has changed over the last 50 years.

And for a long time, we hit a boom roughly around the 1950s, 1960s when air conditioning was introduced.

That was the last time that we had seen a tremendous amount of growth on the electric system.

And after that point, we introduced really efficient appliances.

And although population continued to grow, the electric cells started to decline.

And we have pretty much been neutral, net neutral, for the last five to six decades until just a few years ago when we start talking about manufacturing growth and the potential for data centers and AI.

And also considering electrification and transportation electrification.

And so when you think about just this first time in over decades of decades of time where the electric system is now requiring growth,

we have been a maintenance, let's just maintain and ensure reliability because, you know, things are flat, sales are flat.

And now we're seeing for the first time since the 1960s this low growth on the system.

So then we have to think about how we change, how the company has started to change, and thinking about how we're going to meet this new demand.

And let's set aside data centers and AI for a second because it's still very, very new in conversation, and we haven't seen that market mature or anywhere near maturity yet.

And we'll just think about right now electrification and adoption of electric vehicles.

So infrastructure build out since the 1930s.

You can see here we have the low growth coming in in the 1960s.

Obviously, like I said, when air conditioning was introduced, conservation and appliance efficiency has continued to decline it and then maintain,

which had enabled us to actually invest in renewable generation and integrate all of those renewables and build out that clean electric system.

And now we are thinking about what does it mean to invest into infrastructure and meet this new demand and new growth.

So this is one of my most favorite slides because it does actually depict what it would look like for an electric system and for a customer.

Going from a traditional residential customer today, you've got, you know, gas, water heater, gas stove top, gas furnace.

We've got the electric.

And our base load roughly is on average for any one resident is about 6.9 megawatts per

hour.

And so when you start to think about adding rooftop solar, electric stove top, electric

space heating, water heating, potentially having two EVs, you're actually thinking about how

you double the electric demand just for one household as you're migrating toward this

electrification, right?

And so if you're thinking about how you're doubling as a resident, then think about how we need to double our electric grid, right, to serve that load.

And so we've been at maintenance, net sales, making sure that everybody stays exactly where we are.

And now we're seeing this increase.

And so we're having to back that up with ensuring that we are thinking about how we build the infrastructure to support growth like this.

So we said, okay, we're going to take it head on.

And we understand and forecast that our customers, we've got to ensure that we're empowering our customers to be able to choose and to hook up as they're electrifying their homes or adopting electric vehicles.

And so we need to think about a couple of things, making sure that we continue to stay very closely connected to that clean energy transition as we're integrating renewables, thinking about clean, firm, baseload, energy generation.

How are we continuing to support that and continuing to maintain that commitment that we gave to the state of Colorado in leading that clean energy transition while also aligning that to this load growth?

In addition to that, we are thinking about how do we stay innovative and think about what our value is to this new customer that is thinking is evolving to this new way in which they're using energy.

How do we expand that grid to not only serve what is at the moment in time, but think about what that future looks like?

How do we start to get more sophisticated about integrating system planning for the future?

How do we look five years out?

How do we look 10 years out?

How do we start to plan for that so that we're not always feeling like we're catching up to meet our customers' needs, but we're looking forward?

We do this, and we have done this, on the energy generation side and the transmission side.

So in the past, over the last 15 years, we have switched state policy to forecast out energy generation and build energy generation into the future.

We've done that on the transmission side, too.

And last session at the legislature, we actually negotiated and passed a bill that thought about that on the distribution side, too.

So transmission, big poles and wires that are usually in rural Colorado, pulling, you know, pulling the electrons from all of those generating plants and renewable energy plants that are out on the eastern plains into the metro area because that's where our load growth is.

And then so now we've got to think about the poles and wires in our backyard, right, in our neighborhoods, in our communities.

And so that was the last pillar of that forward forecasting, meeting the growth in the future.

that we worked on to transition to ensure that we're investing today for that future.

And then we're also obviously technology changes on the electric and the gas system as much as it

does in any other part of the industry. So ensuring that we're just thinking always about how we

modernize the grid, adopt technologies that enable us to better understand our customer,

to better understand reliability. Smart meters is an example of that, and investing into smart

meters. An example would be, you know, right now at this moment for outages, you have to call. We

don't know on our system if you are out of power. You actually have to call into the company and

report your outage. So how do we think about technology in the future so that that's not

something that our customers would have to do in the future? We would know right away if we have an outage.

So we last year said, okay, we've got to meet this growth.

So this is the investments, the infrastructure investments that we've got to do over the next five years to meet this forecasted load growth that we are seeing on the system.

So we made a commitment and said over the next five years, we need to invest $22.5 billion into the electric and gas infrastructure in the state of Colorado to meet this new growth, this new demand that we see in the future.

So we are actually in the midst right now. This is not something that we say, hey, this is our goal, and we haven't done anything to achieve this aspect of things at this moment.

So right now, the electric generation and the renewable energy, we are finalizing approvals with our Public Utilities Commission to receive the nearly $4 billion of renewable and electric generation to put on the system through 2031.

That is in final steps of being approved by the Public Utilities Commission.

the distribution system. We have said over the next five years, we've got to invest seven and a

half billion dollars for our customers in Colorado to upgrade and build out the distribution system.

The first step of that was passing the piece of legislation that we did last year. It's our

distribution system plan. We filed our first distribution system plan with our Colorado

Public Utilities Commission. Just maybe six months ago, we're in the midst of working through that

with our Colorado Public Utilities Commission to see when ultimately where we land for the

investments over the next two years on our distribution system plan. So that's part of that

$7.5 billion. We also, on the transmission side, we've already completed several of the transmission

upgrades, including building out an over 500-mile transmission line on the eastern plains.

The first part of that transmission line in Weld County came online just last year,

and we are in final steps.

We've got two more counties, Elbert County and El Paso County, to go through the 1041

process for siting and permitting approval.

We've gone through 13 counties to have those approvals over the last couple of years.

So we are in construction of building out some of the transmission already.

And then technology and natural gas system are just the inclusion of ensuring that we operate a safe system as we continue to serve natural gas to our customers.

So with all of those investments, we are maintaining that we can do this.

We can still serve this growing demand.

We can invest into the infrastructure while continuing to meet the clean energy transition and the commitments that we've given to our customers into the state of Colorado.

So as of 2024, we actually don't have 25 numbers.

We should have them in probably another one or two months at the end of first quarter.

But we're roughly around, I would, 46% renewable energy on the system today.

So over the last 15 years, that's the work that we've been doing in transitioning and meeting that carbon-free future.

And you can see that mix, still 20% on coal, 34% natural gas.

We've got obviously a high intensity of wind at 35, solar at 9%.

And then that other renewable, we have very small hydros that we operate in the state of Colorado.

Actually, one of the hydro plants that we operate is the oldest hydro plant in the entire country.

But we've got about 20 megawatts, so not a very big system, but we've got 20 megawatts of hydro in our system in Colorado.

So that's that 1%.

And then by 2030, with the approval of our almost final clean energy plan and the just transmission plan,

which commission is about ready in final. We're waiting for written decision on that.

That'll deliver us that 88% carbon free. So again, I just want to say that this isn't a goal that we

haven't been working towards already. We're actually almost in final stages through our PUC

in all of the different projects that we've got to do to deliver that commitment of 88%

carbon-free on the system. You can see here there's 3% coal. That 3% reflects a coal unit

down in Pueblo at the Comanche. It's our last unit. And that 3% would actually go to zero by

the end of 2031. So we have a commitment with the state that we will be retiring that coal unit at

the end of 2031, and that'll eliminate all coal from our system in Colorado. And then obviously

the natural gas and then wind, and you can see a tremendous increase on that wind and solar to get

us to that 88%. This is the Colorado Power Pathway that I was just mentioning. It's the transmission

line that we've been building to get all of those renewables to Metro Denver. So we made a

commitment that said to ensure that this is cost effective for customers in Colorado, we need to

build the transmission first because if we build it in the area at which we understand where there's

the highest renewable penetration, wind and solar on our system in the state of Colorado, and we take

accountability to building that, it will lessen the cost for developers and it will lessen the cost

for our customers over time as developers would need to build a generation or we would need to

build generation and then everybody individually would be trying to build transmission to

interconnect and make sure that it comes to the metro area. So we took the initiative to file that

plan and ask for approval to build this transmission line. You can see here segment one is what I

mentioned just earlier that is online up in the blue. And then we've got all of these different

segments that we are currently building with a goal to have this online and operating by the

end of 28. So a little bit of a hiccup with a couple of our local government counties, but that's

okay. We'll get through it and we'll continue to be able to construct this power pathway is what

we call it for our transmission line. So let's talk about the distribution system because I know

that this is the constraint. This is the challenge. This is where over the last five years we have

all, including ourselves, and I know you all as well, have heard the frustrations about not being

able to connect right away, not being able to, you know, put their solar garden in. We have capacity

constraints on our distribution system. I was actually just talking to somebody last week and

somebody who builds small homes in Denver. And, you know, and he's become very engaged in wanting

to talk about energy and the distribution system and how it's challenging to get hooked up. And,

you know, and he even said, he said, you know, 10 years ago, it was just there. I never had to think

about energy. I never had to think about the infrastructure. I'd call, put an application in,

and all of a sudden I'd have a meter set and I'd be online and ready to go. And I said, yes. And

so over the last 10 years, we've had this challenge with growth and not building that

distribution to meet that growth, which is the distribution system plan. So I wanted to spend a

little bit of time to just deepen our understanding, because this is very much a new pillar of our

business that we have started to work to address. So we actually proposed a budget

to the Public Utilities Commission under our distribution plan to say over the next,

you know, for 26, 27, and 28, based off of whether it's capacity issues, right? So electric feeders

that already have all of the load on it, and we can't put any more load on a feeder. So that's

capacity issues. We either have to upgrade the feeder or we have to put a new feeder in, right?

And those, the capacity is actually also somewhat new business, right? Or additional power that is

required on the distribution system. Asset health and reliability, we have a lot of underground

cable. We have a lot of electric lines and some tools that are old. And so we're always trying

to ensure that we're maintenancing those so that we can maintain the reliability and the asset

health of the grid tools and communications this is just small things like new reclosers new taps

different things that enable us to just operate our system just a little bit better um mandates

are not necessarily i wouldn't call them mandates these are relocations so any city right any city

that we have a franchise agreement with any public project public construction we have to do

relocations we sometimes have to do upgrades to our distribution system so

that is considering those relocations or those upgrades that we're doing to

support public projects in our cities and towns and then new business so this

is just new growth new low growth not necessarily a house retrofitting and

upgrading to an electric from a gas this is new build new homes new businesses

anybody that is looking for electric service on the distribution system.

So in total, we estimated over these three years that we're roughly around $3 billion

that we have to invest to ensure that we're meeting that demand,

ensure that power just isn't a thought again, right?

And you can just put an application in and get hooked up

and not have any of the constraints that our customers have been feeling in Colorado.

And what the commission is, what we're waiting on, we're still in a little bit of a debate with our public utilities commission.

They have brought back and proposed to us that they think that, you know, our investments need to be cut in half.

And so we are actually filing a little bit of a debate back and saying, look, like our forecast numbers need to account for a little bit more of that growth.

And so we are working back and forth right now with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to see if we can get just a little bit more money to invest into the distribution system plan.

So this is what would what does it mean for Denver, right?

So I just talked about all of these things that we're doing for Colorado, all the things that we're doing for Colorado customers, the distribution system plan that's meeting the growth for all of our Colorado customers in our communities.

So this is what would be proposed just to serve what we believe needs to advance over the next three years for the city and county of Denver.

So in an ideal world, if we put all, if we put 700 million roughly in distribution investments into the system in just Denver, we do transmission upgrades.

So some of our transmission lines are constrained.

So when you're pulling renewable energy into the metro area or into Denver, we've got old transmission lines that are either underground that we've just got to upgrade.

We've got to add a little bit more capacity to them so that we can pool that renewable energy that we're generating into the city of Denver.

And so there's some transmission upgrades that are absolutely needed that we have started to work on in the city of Denver.

So between the distribution and transmission, this is what we are estimating we will need to invest into the city and county of Denver to meet the load growth that we are seeing.

That includes, you know, River Mile.

It includes Ball Arena.

It includes Burnham Yards.

It includes, you know, just all of the different, it includes Den, just all the growth that we're seeing in Denver.

This is what we believe we need to invest into the city of Denver over the next nine years to make sure that we're delivering on the infrastructure and the energy for the city of Denver and our customers.

So what does that mean?

So these are all of our feeders.

So in this map here, this is either expanding feeders or adding new feeders.

And so feeders are these are electric lines that serve thousands of customers all at once.

Right. We've got electric feeders that are running underground from substations to serve customers.

And so these are from each one of the existing substations that you see here that are color coded by the dot.

we have proposed in our distribution system plan that these are all of the

feeders that we either need to upgrade or we need to add to ensure that we're

delivering on those capacity that infrastructure capacity and investments

into the city and county of Denver so there's a lot of work to happen here

with these electric lines to ensure that we're meeting that road and then in

addition to that, we don't have enough substations. And so this is an additional aspect of things

that we are saying we need to think about how we upgrade and add substations to the city of Denver

to meet that load growth, to ensure that those electric feeders are hooking into the substation

and we have the distribution system to meet the growth of the city of Denver. And so some of these

actually would be paid for by developers or cited on land that our developers are

in their area so ball arena there's the river mile substation and the ball arena substation

like those are already planned we've been working with ball arena and river mile for

a little over two years and making sure that they understand that we've got to put substations

on their property to meet the growth for that area. And then in addition to that, as you all know,

Poder substation is one that we are currently in construction and meeting that was born out of the

need up in Globeville to meet the national western growth and then also all the growth in that area.

And then the rest of these, our Barker substation is an expansion so that all of these different

pieces of substation are either new or they are expansions of current substations

that we need to put in place in the city of dunver to meet the meet the growth

so let's just talk really quickly about den and dunver um in service to den i know this is a

potential question so i just wanted to preempt the question and make sure that we are answering

answering it. If you can see on this last slide that I showed you, you've got DIA South Substation

and DIA North Substation. Both of those substations were included in the distribution system plan,

and they were approved through the PUC to build one in 28 and one in 2030. Those are

very aggressive timelines. That is barring all kinds of other things, land, permitting, inciting,

everything else that we've got to work through to ensure that those are coming online.

But they were included and are included in our distribution system plan.

So you can also see them down here in the two new substations planned for DIA South and DIA

north substation. In addition to that, we are, well, currently Bar Lake and Sky Ranch are two

substations that currently serve DEN. DEN is a very critical customer of ours, one of our more

important customers. They are served by two substations for reliability and redundancy.

So if one substation goes out, we can automatically change them over almost without a blip sometimes.

And sometimes it's a little challenging, but almost without a blip to that second substation to ensure that they are not complicated with an outage.

So that's why we've got two serves, two DEN, is to ensure that reliability.

And then we are actually investing into one of those substations and expanding one of those substations to meet some of the short-term growth that DEN has planned.

We work with DEN on a regular basis.

We coordinate with DEN.

We have plans in the distribution system plan to serve DEN over the next five years.

And so that is the expansion of one of the substations with additional transformers.

And then obviously building out and working with DEN on serving DEN through two additional substations.

so i can't talk about all this money and all the investments and everything that we've got

planned over the next five years without obviously thinking about affordability um and

thinking about how responsible the students that we have to be in making sure that we are prudent

with the plans that we have put in place or the plans that we have in wanting to desire

and achieve without thinking about affordability. So we filed a rate case, as you all probably know,

in November. It was an electric rate case. That rate case actually trues up all the investments

that we've done since 2023 up until now. So in the future, what will happen is that distribution

system plan will actually take about 80% of our electric rates out of the electric rate case

and we'll start putting it into the distribution system plan and planning for the future,

that actually might enable us to not have to continue to file rate cases on a regular basis

to true up all the investments that we've done in the past.

So we did file an electric rate case in November, and we also filed a natural gas rate case in December.

That, again, was to true up over the last two years of investments that we've made to serve our customers.

with natural gas. And we are always monitoring how do we compare to other states? What do we

look like to other states as we're filing for these rate cases and thinking about affordability

and making sure that we keep to our commitment to stay below the national average on our rates

on the electric and the gas side. So we are seeing a lot of growth around the country in

electric rates and gas rates, you probably have seen many articles over the last six or eight

months in thinking about affordability and rate impacts. And so it's not something that we are not

paying attention to and thinking about as we stay competitive with other utilities and other states

around the country. So that leads us to just trying to maintain as much as we possibly can

our electric rates and natural gas rates staying below the national average.

So right here in this slide, you can see we've got the national average is the beige line,

the Colorado utility rates, so every other utility other than XL is the black line,

and then we're red.

And so we still continue to think about how that looks from a rate increase and affordability

and maintaining being below the national average and other utilities in the state.

And then, obviously, affordability rates.

We've got to always think about our most vulnerable customers and how we service them.

And so we think about it in not necessarily one direct way of assistance.

It's a layered way in which we think about how we serve our customers in this fashion.

One is access. How are we thinking about access? How are we promoting programs? How are we helping customers understand they have payment plans?

What does that access look like? And making sure that we're doing everything we can to raise the education and outreach so that our customers know they have access to different programs,

different payment plans, and other ways to help them with their utility bill.

And then in addition to that, we always think about payment plans, energy assistance in partnership with Colorado Energy Outreach, Colorado Energy Outreach Colorado.

Energy Outreach Colorado.

Sorry, I blanked on that.

Jennifer would kill me if I did.

She's such an important partner.

But working with Energy Outreach Colorado, making sure that we are advancing the funds that they need to help their most vulnerable customers, our most vulnerable customers.

And then thinking about how do we make sure that we are talking to our customers, whether that's through a partnership with the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado.

it's in partnership with other nonprofits in promoting access to programs energy

efficiency programs electrification programs if they so choose payment

programs all the ways in which we can touch our customer and help our

customer so I would be remissed before we end to talk about just the franchise

agreement you know and making sure that I just capitalize and highlight the

benefits of a franchise agreement with the city of Denver and with Excel. It's efficiency, right?

It streamlines and helps us coordinate with the city and county of Denver on all the ways in which

we are relocating lines, putting you in the structure in and right away. And within the

franchise agreement, it's very explicit about how we coordinate with the city and county of Denver

and communicate meeting timelines, design timelines, all the ways in which we do that,

obviously facilitated and supported by Grace here.

And so that efficiency and that coordination is always really important.

And then savings.

So through the franchise agreement, any public project relocation, the cost is borne by XL Energy.

That's the commitment that we have in operating in right-of-way.

obviously at the end of the day, and servicing our city and towns who have franchise agreements.

So that obviously helps too with just savings when we pay for the cost of relocations.

I'm not going to actually go through this slide because I know that most of you already know the benefits of a franchise agreement.

We've already been through the explanation of that.

But I will say that we took a lot of feedback, a lot of feedback, very, very serious feedback from all of you, each one of you.

And so what we have done is we have evaluated all of that feedback and we set ourselves over the next 11 months to hopefully improve on our service to you all.

And also ensuring that you all, along with your constituents, understand the value of the franchise agreement and that we continuously improve to be the best worker that we can possibly be in serving the city of Denver and our customers.

And so we are in the midst and have had meetings on a council listening tour.

We have formalized an internal rapid response team to constituent issues.

So if you've got operational issues that you receive from your constituents and there's confusion around who receives them, how they're passed, are they getting resolved?

We have formalized a rapid response team inside the company in partnership with operations.

And we have just initiated a couple of the first meetings.

But I hope and my commitment is that over the next 11 months, you will see a different way in which we are responding to those constituent complaints.

And we are capturing all of those different complaints, customer service complaints.

And then my team, in partnership with Grace, we've got Andrew Holder, who's on my team as well, who's managing this rapid response team and figuring out how we respond quicker and then figure out how we respond to you all quicker so that you know that those are resolved.

We have engaged advocacy ventures in helping us with meeting 176 of the community and neighborhood associations all across the city of Denver.

So that's our commitment is that we are going to meet, whether it's virtual or with one individual or in person, in meeting all community organizations across the city.

and then we will continue to do what we've always done,

which is invest in the community, sponsor different events,

and make sure that our city and our customers know

that we want to continue to be a very important partner

and that we've been here for 150 years

and we want to be here for another 100.

So that is the end.

So thank you for listening and bearing with me

through all of my slides.

I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you so much. That was a great presentation.

I felt with lots of information.

I'll have to go back through and rewatch it to digest everything.

But really appreciate the partnership and you all being here with us today.

So in the queue, just so everyone's clear, we have Councilman Charity, Councilman Romero-Curmbel, Councilmember Gilmore, Councilmember Cashman, and Councilmember Watson.

if anyone else online needs to get in.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you for this.

There's so much info in here.

My wheels are spinning on a lot of it.

My question I have is about the,

if we go back to the slide about the energy assistance,

and I think Tim has to put it back on.

Yeah, and then you'll be able to click it.

There we go.

The 20,000 referred customers,

in what area is that?

Sorry, the folks who were ineligible for current programs in the 2024 to 2025 program year. Okay. Hold on. Let me follow. It's the tiny font under the picture of a broken link.

I'm about to the red star. It says over 20,000 referred customers. Yeah. In what statewide or statewide. Okay. Yeah. I was curious about that. Yeah.

This obviously is going to, I think, continue to be a concern because people are just, you know, with inflation, everything else, like household households are experiencing so much pressure.

And this was 1 of the topics that kind of came up when we were discussing a side agreement to the franchise agreement. So I would love to know what number of those folks were in Denver and kind of anything you have about, like, reasons for eligibility for what that.

And now they just made too much money or whatever, but that would be great to know. So that's just a follow up question.

Sure. And then I'm curious on a completely different topic as you're building out some of this new infrastructure, how you're thinking about trying to make sure that as much of it is built with union labor as possible. And I know you all have.

Yeah, it's a huge priority for us. Obviously, as you know, our entire field workforce is IBEW, both on the electric and gas side. So they are our bread and butter, right?

There's roughly about 3,500 employees in Colorado, and half of that, if not 60%, are our union guys.

And then in addition to that, we work with contractors who have and are required to maintain quotas for making sure that they are unions.

So between Sturgeon, Q3, Pike, all of them use union contractors.

So, yeah, that's my question is when you're contracting out new projects.

Yes.

Is that a requirement that you put into every contract or is it?

It is in every contract. Some of them have a higher quota than others.

Anything over $500,000 that our public projects are required to have union employees or union contractors in addition to our contractors.

And it varies.

Sometimes we don't use union contractors when we're on weekends or doing storm response or other work just because they've already met their required time that they can work.

Or they choose not to work overtime, and so we're offsetting that sometimes with non-union contractors.

But for a majority of all of our projects, including Power Pathway, the big transmission line, they are union.

Okay. Yeah, I would love to know more about what the quotas are in the big contracts, not, you know, like the major.

Sure. And we bid, so all of our renewable energy projects that we build and own and operate are also required to have union.

Right. Thank you. That's exactly what I was curious about.

And then I, Grace and I have been discussing this a little bit, but I did want to ask, because I know a lot of other council members have their eyes on this,

for the core site data center that's under construction now in District 9.

I was curious if there's anything known about the timeline for,

they had promised community, Councilman Watson, the at-large offices,

that they would be building their own substation on site just for their own use.

What I was curious about, though, is if that's going to take quite a bit longer

than it will for the data center to come online,

or like what we know about how long it will take for that to happen and to what extent that's,

I'm sure there's a process they have to be going through with Excel to do that.

So I just would love to know more about that.

And if there's any chance of like a gap there where they don't have that substation in place yet

and they're operating, that's kind of what I'm trying to understand.

And again, Grace and I have been talking about it, but I don't know that I am totally clear on that timeline yet.

I do know, and I'm looking at Grace because it's the first time that I've heard of, I know as they grow, they will move off of the distribution system onto our transmission system.

And so they're currently planned to be served from the distribution side at the Podair substation.

So depending on when that, you know, we've delayed in service day of that system.

And so I know that that's been a frustration for Coresight.

And we've been working through how we expedite in service to them.

But they will be fed from Podair substation on the distribution side.

When we, for any data center, when we go above 20 megawatts, they are no longer served on the distribution system.

they then become transmission just because of the voltage and how many megawatts that is.

And we can't continue to serve off of the distribution system reliably, so they go to transmission.

So they may have an evolution as they grow from 10 megawatts, 15, 20, 30 to 50 potentially,

and we would transition them off of the distribution system to the transmission system.

When they go onto the transmission system for any data center, they have to continue to own and operate their own distribution.

So they are not hooked into our distribution system once they go over 20 megawatts.

And there's a couple of reasons why.

One in particular is that the voltage equipment that we build and serve and maintenance in Colorado, it doesn't meet the voltage requirements that a lot of these data centers have.

And so what we've agreed on is that they own and operate their distribution system once they become a transmission customer.

So another if I were to translate this from kind of the public point of view that the idea that when they say we'll build our own substation

What that means is when they switch over to transmission

I have to do that. I'll confirm but that's what I'm assuming

Do you have a timeline for when they expect to be at the 20 megawatts like have they projected that for you at all?

I don't I don't know we if we can make a no and respond back to you

I you know they've given us a load ramp schedule

of when they would go from, you know, 5, 10, 20 to 50.

And I don't necessarily know if that's been updated or where that's at.

But I think I feel like, don't catch me out of terms here,

but I feel like it's like a 7 to 10-year progress to get towards that.

And that's if they hit it, right?

I mean, some of these data centers are becoming very efficient,

and what they think that they needed two years ago.

Yeah, it rapidly changes. So we've just got to change with them.

Okay. Thank you.

Can I just add that? So they would be temporary customers from getting their power from both

and also from the north substation, a feeder for the north substation that currently exists.

Also in district nine at 40th and York. So we can get clarity for you exactly on that timeline.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Next up, we have Council Pro Temer-Mario Campbell followed by Councilwoman Cameron.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the presentation.

A lot of that question.

But in one point you had mentioned that there was going to be technology to tell you about the outages.

Yeah.

And can you just speak a little bit more to that?

Like how long will that take?

What is the technology that's needed?

When can we expect that?

Yeah.

So we finished installing all of the smart meters that didn't opt out, that customers didn't opt out.

And so we actually, it took us about, shoot, four or five years to install smart meters across our service territory.

We just finished that.

And so now the work is to integrate some of that software technology from the smart meter to our systems and our software at the company.

And so that work is going on right now.

I can't I will see if I can get you a commitment.

The challenge with technology, as you can imagine, is that five years ago, the technology we thought we were going to use for the software system on our smart meters is actually evolved and become a little more sophisticated.

And so I know that we've reevaluated what software we need to do.

But I will see if I can get you a more firm timeline on when we can see that from a customer-facing standpoint.

Go ahead.

May I just clarify that that is for not-

I do call you about streetlights.

Thank you.

Will there be a process for streetlights in the future?

Do you anticipate?

something for streetlights i have not seen any discussion or thinking around our streetlights

or if we would have any sort of technology to put that on and i just for one second if i can

think about just a streetlight they're typically not they don't have like each streetlight doesn't

have a meter, right? They're typically fed multiple streetlights in one conduit and the

conduit then goes back. And so if we were to ever think about that, you would probably have to figure

out how we identify individually each streetlight for it to then talk to a meter, to then talk to

the system. And I just, I mean, that's my first response in just thinking about how our system

is built with street lights, unfortunately.

But I have not at this time learned of any technology

that would allow for us to know exactly

when a street light is out

and how we would respond to that.

Thank you.

I did have another question.

A little bit about, it was on slide 17 and 18,

but just the,

I made a note to myself, the feeder lines and the substations, there are different ones listed.

The numbers that are there, there's a dollar amount and a date.

Yeah.

Is that when you anticipate for construction?

So this is.

Created or ending.

Can you just talk a little bit more about this?

Sure.

Sure.

So each individual line is a different feeder.

So from, let's just say, the Denver Terminal Thrive substation, which is the substation that is over by Zuni Steam Power Plant and the Bronco Stadium.

It's the big substation over there.

So we have plans to add to and upgrade one of the feeder, which is why you've got such a huge difference in cost, right?

You've got the $47 million, the $20 million, and then the $2.9 million.

And so this is what we propose to the commission through our distribution system plan,

what we believe the cost that needs to be invested into either add a feeder or upgrade a feeder

and when it would be in service.

So that $27, $29, $26 would be our in-service date.

And that's what we've proposed to the commission.

So this could very well change a little bit depending on what our Public Utilities Commission approves.

But this is the plan that we believe needs to happen on the feeder side to deliver in meeting that five-year growth here in the state.

Okay.

And then the next slide is the substation slide, I believe?

Yes.

So this is our substations.

And these are all new.

I'm looking at the numbers.

So those are all like new substation with those numbers.

I feel like Barker, we already have a Barker substation.

It's a substation that's over by Coors Field.

So I believe that that one is a huge, like we have a lot of land, not land, but space at the Barker substation.

So this is a long-term plan to upgrade and add transformers to make that substation bigger and more robust.

So that one isn't new, but it would be new as far as infrastructure investment.

Okay.

I could go down a rabbit hole about substations.

I will hold it and ask you more offline.

I just I appreciate this.

I'm just looking at like the cherry knolls.

That's probably outside of the Denver metro area close to, you know, southeast Denver into my district.

district and i was just trying to figure out like the substations are then leading into the feeders

and they're and you're adding it there because there's a higher need more demand yeah so yeah

so the way in which we identify is we'll take all of our electric load and how customers are using

in the city of denver and we'll overlay it with our current infrastructure and our current

substations and then we'll heat map it and we'll be able to see like where is the most,

what area has the most constraints based off of what we forecast for growth, whether that's,

you know, and we integrate different growth models, economic development, growth models,

builders who have plans that we've asked to submit so that we can better understand where

that growth is coming from. And we'll heat map current use, current infrastructure, and then

identify where those additional needs would be so that we can build a more redundant and reliable

system to serve everybody. And so these locations, we've heat mapped and identified as areas where we

need to build the new substations to meet that low demand. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Next up we have Councilmember Gilmore followed by Councilmember.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here today and presenting and then also being out in the

community at some of the community meetings as we were talking about electricity and future

needs.

And so on slide 10, you talked about new investments.

And I don't know if you'll have the information today, but I would like it as a follow-up.

For the electric generation, it was $1.6 billion.

We're on slide 10.

All right. So the electric generation is 1.6 billion investment. How many megawatts?

Or how does that equate?

That's a variable a little bit because it also depends on the different projects and the accreditation of the energy penetration that we have or the saturation on our system.

So the renewable energy, that $3.6 billion is actually roughly around 4,000 megawatts.

So we had worked with the state of Colorado in our Public Utilities Commission just actually in October and November.

And we put in a supplemental energy generation plan into the Public Utilities Commission in partnership with the state because we knew that all of the federal tax subsidies were going away.

And so the way in which we could take advantage of those federal tax subsidies and keep rates as low as possible while integrating this renewable energy on the system, we needed to fast track an approval process through the PUC and for them to approve it so that we could get started on procurement of that renewable gen to meet, so that we could still take advantage of those tax credits that are planned to go away in 27.

And so we applied for 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy generation into the PUC, which roughly, I think, isn't in total of that $3.6 billion, but pretty sufficient because we also said if we can fast track this 4,000 megawatts and take advantage of the tax subsidies, we won't then have to go back in 27 or 28 and ask for more.

We should just upfront all of that and get those investments in.

So that was something that the PUC and the state worked with us on.

And we're in the midst of written approval.

We've gotten verbal approval, and we're just waiting for written approval on that.

The electric generation, that $1.6 billion, is mostly our natural gas and our natural gas plants.

And so we have applied and continue to apply to the commission on natural gas combustion turbines and expanding them either at our Fort St. Brain plant or we just actually came online two weeks ago and transitioned our coal plant out at Brush to a natural gas plant.

We did that over this last year, and it came online a couple of weeks ago.

And so that $1.6 billion is accounted for in that additional natural gas plant because, obviously, at the end of the day, renewables are only as good as when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.

And we have to continue to have that firm baseload generation, at least until we have a different technology that we can advance and bring online.

So that's that 1.6. And that's a variable because it's really contingent upon what we get approval from our commission on, right?

And if they're comfortable with giving us that or not.

And is there an estimate, at least, with the electric generation?

On the electric generation side?

We, at some point, applied for 800 megawatts of electric generation last summer.

I'm not sure if we've updated that number or worked to update that number, but it's anywhere between like 800 and 1,000 megawatts.

Okay. All right. Great. That is super helpful.

And then on down to slides 17 and 18, just trying to kind of understand what the capacity is.

And so with the feeder line, is there an estimate of megawatts that are produced per feeder line if you're doing calculations?

Yeah.

So we typically, we've got a standard in the company that keeps us right at 10 megawatts per feeder line.

So on the distribution side, each feeder has to maintain, you know, we say 10 megawatts is as much as we can possibly handle on a feeder line to ensure that it maintains reliability and we don't have maintenance issues on each feeder.

Sometimes we go a little above 22, 24 megawatts, you know, two or four megawatts, but standard is 10 megawatts per feeder line.

Okay. And then the same question, but for substations. So the next slide, there's the DIA

south substation that's coming on in 2028. And then the north substation, is there an average for

what megawatts of substation would produce? That varies because typically are these substations,

given the fact that they're on our side of the system, are not directly served by one customer.

If one customer is serviced by a substation, they typically bear that cost and all of the operations and maintenance.

I mean, we still operate it, but it's bared on that cost.

So for Barker and Sky Ranch, which are the two substations that we currently serve,

Bar Lake.

It's like we currently serve 20 megawatts on Bar Lake, 20 megawatts on, you know, no, probably 40 megawatts on each one of those subs.

But they are not the only ones.

Den is not the only customer that is served off of each of those substations.

So we can go anywhere from 40 megawatts upwards to, you know, 150, 200 megawatts sometimes on substations.

So they're pretty big.

It just depends on the additional transformers that we have to add to build out a larger substation.

Okay.

That's really super helpful.

And so then my final question is when Denver International Airport, so we had to, I had to sign up to actually sign up on the bid net to download the request for information that they put out.

But they specifically say that Denver International Airport currently uses 45 megawatts of electricity and expects to need 400 megawatts by 2045.

And so based upon these two substations, additionally, the feeders and the substations, it seems like if my math is correct and I'm tracking that, will you have the capacity and enough for redundancy based on what you've presented us today?

So based off of the work that we've done with DEN, what they have forecasted for load growth, what we have planned for our distribution system plan that's currently approved, we can serve DEN with what their growth plans are.

Now, I think that DEN is also looking at, and I won't speak out of terms, but I think that DEN is also looking at redundancy and resiliency.

And so that's something that I think is an ongoing conversation that we have to have with DEN.

And I know that DEN is thinking about, too, is that redundancy and resiliency, which is probably more in question.

But as far as direct service to DEN, we have plans to serve DEN.

Right. And how often do you meet with Den to talk about resiliency, redundancy, and the electric grid?

I, on, regularly, I mean, I'm going to look, I'm looking at Scott with Den and Joanne, who's our key account manager, but I suspect you guys are working often.

Have a good morning.

Thank you.

And if you'll introduce yourself.

Yes, of course.

Good afternoon, everyone. Scott Morrissey. I'm the Senior Vice President for Sustainability at the airport. And in response to your question, I think what you heard from Holly today is all of these infrastructure growth projects require a lot of advanced planning, both from a lead time perspective, the Public Utilities Commission perspective.

And so we've actually, going back a better part of three years now, been meeting on a monthly basis with Excel so that we could better refine those electric capacity projections that you were talking about, make sure that we have those plans in place to ensure that substation development is going to be on a timeframe that would be able to meet some of those major projects, the consolidated rental car facility, the north terminal expansion.

And so we've been working on a monthly basis for the last three years and just ensuring that both on the airport side, the projections were being continually refined, and then on the Excel side, that we're fitting into that Public Utilities Commission approval process.

That's awesome.

I appreciate that, Scott, so much.

And so with the consolidated rental side, then you're saying that through your monthly meetings, through your last three years of meetings with Accel Energy, that you have enough power currently at DEN for the consolidated rental car side.

Yeah, so as you saw on the screen, there's two substations that are currently just recently been approved by the Public Utilities Commission.

The self substation, the real anchor use for that is going to be the consolidated rental car facility.

But the point that you made, Council Member, that's really important is that these are projections based off of a couple of different factors.

In the case of the consolidated rental car facility, we're obviously trying to create an environment where as quickly as the rental car companies are able to transition to electric vehicles, we want to make sure that we are able to serve them through that facility.

Then there's also the question about redundancy.

Most of the major sources at the airport are actually fed by feeders coming from each of the substations.

substation. So to the point that Holly made earlier, if one feeder were to go down, another

one can immediately pick it up. Those are the conversations that we need to have in real time

with the rental car providers to be able to say, what is the new timeline associated with the

electrification of your fleets? And then how much redundancy do we need to have for that use to

operational impacts? I really appreciate that. I think the biggest question that remains within

the community, rightly so, is that the small nuclear, the small modular nuclear reactor

conversation totally hopscotched over any conversation with Xcel Energy in a public forum.

And so this is quite honestly the first time that either Xcel Energy or DEN have been in

the same room to have this on the public record.

And I think that that's horrible given the importance of the airport, but then also having

these redundancies and best case record or best case studies show that small modular

nuclear reactors should not be placed anywhere within 50 miles of residential.

That's the most up-to-date studies.

And so, again, I think there were plenty of gaps, and we'll look where we can go forward on it.

So thank you both.

Appreciate it.

To point out, you all have been very supportive over the course of the years with the solar development projects at the airport.

We currently have about 50 megawatts of solar installed on the campus.

Just last summer, you all approved a new 17.5 megawatt facility that's going to be built next year.

But to another point, there are changing instances at the federal level that have really been the basis of this kind of project that we've been able to do in partnership with Excel over time.

And so, again, the purpose of the RFI is really understand in this new context that we find ourselves, how can we most effectively ensure that we both have power when and where it's needed,

but also prioritize onsite generation where possible because obviously the environment around renewables has changed quite a bit just due to those changes.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Doing a time check. We have 20 minutes.

And now we have Council Member Cashman followed by Council Member Watson.

Yeah, I had to be able to keep my questions to an hour and a half.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Thank you for the presentation. So, I'm going back to the councilman Perry's earliest question. I think my concerns, whether it's data centers for any large user is that you've got the capacity to serve them.

And that a profit making companies use is not increasing the rates of my constituents. Okay. So I've understood about 9% of what you've said today. So I'm going to ask us some clarification on the, what I heard you say was on any data center.

And I'm wondering if it extends to other types of users.

You'll service them up to 20 megawatts, after which they need to create their own substation.

Yeah.

So on the distribution side of our system, we have a certain voltage that we operate equipment on.

And our guys are trained at servicing this voltage of this particular equipment.

And it's different.

So Colorado, I think it's 12 and a half voltage on our equipment on the distribution side.

And in Minnesota, we actually have a different voltage requirement on the equipment in Minnesota.

But our guys are trained to maintenance operate this certain type of equipment.

And data centers, as we are learning about them, is that they need a different voltage at the distribution level.

So it's the small-scale poles and wires.

And we just don't have the ability to bring that type of equipment in, retrain all of our guys, and service a certain type of voltage.

So the one thing that we've done in agreement with some of the data centers that we've talked to who haven't necessarily come online or being served by us in Colorado is to say if the voltage requirement and the equipment is what you want as a data center on the distribution side, you have to own and operate the distribution.

And we will interconnect you into our transmission when you exceed that 20 megawatts, right?

Because based off of Public Utilities Commission and the conversation that we're having with our PUC is that anything over 20 megawatts has to be on the transmission.

So they have to be a transmission customer and not be served at the distribution level.

And so data centers will own equipment and operate the distribution substations and the equipment for the data centers.

And we will interconnect them into the transmission so that they can get the energy generated.

Are you saying they generate their own power?

No, they just operate the poles and wires that distribute the energy generation.

Okay, so they're draining these giant...

So they would still be served by our energy generation and transmitted through our transmission lines.

So they're not contributing new clean energy or anything like that into the system.

Not at least.

They're a drain on the existing system.

the same way that any large user would be?

And I don't necessarily would say that it's a drain.

They're a large volume user on the existing system.

They are a large volume on existing system,

but the system that we need to build for them would be born at the cost of them.

So this is a conversation that we've been having for probably the last six months

with our Public Utilities Commission in creating what we're calling a large load tariff, which

would be a policy.

We are scheduled to submit this policy, this service policy, to the Public Utilities Commission

in April.

And this large load service policy, we call it large load tariff, would actually outline

everything that they would have to pay for, how they work with a utility company,

that they would be born to pay for all the infrastructure, both distribution on their own

side, the transmission infrastructure, and potentially the energy generation to serve them,

it would be at their cost. This sounds very similar. I'm sure you're aware of it. Microsoft

recently suggested that their data centers be charged appropriately. Perhaps we're talking the

same thing. Do you know? I'm not familiar with what Microsoft said, but I will say that a very

strong pillar of both the company and the PUC has been that no cost to of

infrastructure to serve a data center would be born to any other customer.

That's right. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah I guess two comments. One being I'm

Really, I think the City and County of Denver's technology is behind the times.

I'm surprised that you guys aren't able yet to read the outages.

I understand what you're saying.

Thank you for moving forward on that.

The other thing I wanted to bring up, and Grace and I have been in conversation,

y'all are replacing a bunch of polls in my district.

It happens to be my neighborhood, all different.

part of my neighborhood, Virginia Village, and we had a situation where I think it was

insufficient communication from Excel to the constituent.

And one problem was, it sounds like the contractor told my constituent, well, we have an easement

and we can do this at any time.

And I don't like that attitude while it may be legally correct.

The other thing was one of your employees saying to my client, you mean you want me to tell you when we're coming onto your property and then you want me to tell you when we're going to need to shut off your power?

And my answer to that would be yes and yes.

And so I know Grace is, we're meeting tomorrow and I appreciate your assistance along the way.

but yeah, yes and yes.

This is an example, Grace, and I talked about it last week and this week.

This is an example where we can always do better with communication.

You know, a 911 reverse call should not be sufficient.

We should be thinking about how we build communication and awareness

so that just because we have an easement doesn't mean we shouldn't be talking to our customers

and letting them know when we're going to be doing work in their backyards.

Legal doesn't mean gracious.

And I think, you know, it's not just Excel.

It's government, you know.

I don't think a whole lot of people feel the city and county of Denver

is as service-oriented as we need to be.

And probably the same thing with Excel, so we all need to do better.

Thank you.

I don't need that full hour and a half.

Thank you, Madam.

Next up, we have Council Member Watson, Paul of Bightars.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Thank you, Holly.

Thank you, progress.

I just want to publicly say your thoughtfulness in those discussions and your willingness to get back to community members, even on the sticky items.

I want to share, thank you, Council Member Parity, for uplifting the discussion on Coresight.

We will be having a community meeting, inclusive of XL, and including many partners and community partners, the last week of February.

When we are discussing impacts to community, we are building a fact sheet.

If folks have questions, if they don't mind sending it to district9 at denvergov.org, we will absolutely be digging into that.

We are knee-deep in discussions on the large low tariff impacts to community water use, et cetera.

So it will be a full discussion on all of those topics and look forward to hearing more ideas and thoughts from my fellow council members and or community members.

Two quick questions for Excel.

First on innovation.

I know, Holly, you didn't have all the time in the world to go through everything that's happening.

And some of these intersect between my district and District 10 as well, and possibly even District 1 a little bit.

But when you're looking at innovation, let's say for National Western Center, as they focused on geothermal and metro water recovery for heating,

as well as the steam process that goes through downtown and the ambient loop.

Can you speak a little bit about the way innovation impacts, mitigates, and actually extends the life of some of the energy targets that you currently have?

Sure. So I think, you know, we have done a great job in the last 20 years in integrating wind, mills, and solar onto our system.

And it's like I mentioned before, you can integrate so much wind and solar on the system, but if we don't have the storage capacity to capture all of that energy generation, you can actually run a risk of saturating a system and overgenerate, right?

So we call it curtailing, overgenerate on renewables because it's not meeting the load, right?

The demand and the customer use.

And so that comes, so as we've gotten to that point, the conversation now has to be, what do we do?

How do we think about the next generation of advanced technology for energy generation?

Which goes case in point to two things.

One is both at the distribution at the customer level.

So National Western is a perfect example.

The work that we've been doing with the city of Denver and thinking about that ambient loop and figuring out how do these small projects,

projects, these geothermal small projects that we can capture heat, right, and that steam and

rebuild infrastructure and pilot how those small systems can integrate into the overall broader

electric system and we can operate and replicate and scale that over time. And so those pilot

projects, the work that we've done with the National Western, the work that we're doing with

the city of Denver, and a couple of other communities around the state, and figuring

out how those ambient loop geothermal systems work and integrate back into the electric grid,

and not only serve a customer, but also operate. How do we operate it on, and it integrates into

the electric system so that we can learn that and think about how we then scale, right, on the small

side. The other piece is the larger utility scale. And the conversation that I think we all

should start having, I've started actually having it with one of your guys' state senators, Matt

Ball, who is amazing and really into the concept of geothermal, both at a small scale and a large

scale utility scale, which would be multi-hundred megawatts of geothermal. Our state is primed

for geothermal and that heat recovery.

And so what do we do to incentivize advanced technology,

start to take on a little bit of risk to go explore and find this resource

and think about what type of pilot projects we can do

to not be a tier two city or a tier two state around geothermal,

but think about it from a longer term and start to advance ourselves.

So it's work that I think is part of that innovation.

both at a small scale with those ambient loop and small geothermal projects,

and then a large one would be an example of that innovation.

And we don't want Matt Ball's head to get too big, so Senator Ball,

it seems to me to say you're amazing, you're just a nice person.

Sorry.

We were just, I'm sorry, I was just talking with him on Friday about geothermal.

He's great, you know.

I'm basically average, Senator.

My final question, how can the city, and I'll own it,

How can District 9 better partner with XL on sitting and designing new substations to ensure that these projects do not unnecessarily impact equity neighborhoods?

So we're not building every new substation in Global Area Swansea.

Thank you for poder.

Really would like to hear your thoughts on how we do that.

I think, you know, this has been a conversation that we've had with Councilwoman Sandoval, Councilwoman Torres in the past, particularly around Ball Arena, River Mile development, potentially, obviously, Burnham Yards, right, and the Broncos Stadium.

and ensuring that if we are to build substations with some of these larger developments,

how do we plan?

How does the city of Denver, you all, encourage these large developers, encourage these folks

to talk with us really early on so that we can plan for substations on the area at which

they're building so that they don't get too far advanced and they start building out their

development and they haven't contemplated the new substations. And I think the model that we've done,

that you've all done in working with Ball and River Mile and ensuring that they are working

with us, ensuring that they're working with the city of Denver and thinking about infrastructure,

you know, we've got two substations planned to be put on their developments. And so we're not

putting them into a different neighborhood, right? We are supporting it where the growth is at and we

are ensuring that that development plan has contemplated substations. It's the same conversation

that we've been having with the Denver Broncos and the Vernon Yard area too, is just making sure that

they are early on in conversations with us so that they don't build out their master plan

and then it's, oh no, we don't have the substation, so now where do we go put them,

right and that they've contemplated that community planning and that development i think that's a

perfect example of a way in which we can partner in the city can partner and thinking about when

when you have these master plans come in front of you and there are conversations happening around

some of these larger developments that aren't require that out of you know norm load growth

it's have you talked to excel have you contemplated making sure that a substation is built here so

that we don't get too far and then we end up getting stuck with having to build a substation

in a different community that doesn't necessarily drive for the growth. So I do think those examples

are something that we should continue to think about and work together on. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam President. Next up, we have Councilman Torres.

river mile i was interested in how that's playing out will you own property there or lease property

like how is the um the location actually going to manufacture the substation so as

river mile we um we will own uh the acreage that's required for the substation we will build it and

then we will operate it on the, you know, it'll be our property ultimately at the end,

but it'll be something that we will purchase.

The slide around the feeder lines in Denver, all of us, vast majority of us share borders

with other jurisdictions.

How do those feeder lines work in terms of powering jurisdictions beyond Denver's borders?

Great question.

Uh, that's a little bit of a messy nuanced question. Thank you for the, thank you for the question. It's got a messy nuanced answer because when you, when you think about adding infrastructure onto the system, you're then redistributing where those electrons are going on the system to other places that aren't necessarily pulling it in.

Right. So so when we are adding those feeders and we're adding the substations, we're putting them in the city of Denver.

But what that's also doing is resetting and redistributing where all the electrons are going for the rest of the system.

Right. I can't designate electrons being solely served to Denver, solely served a liquid or, you know, or Aurora.

It really just like sort of naturally operates on its own as load is requiring the electrons to be served.

So I would say that it's a shared system.

I mean, ultimately at the end of the day, right?

Like our electric system, and that's why all of our customers are all paid for it all together,

is because this electric system that we have in the state of Colorado, including in Denver,

it's shared by everybody and the way in which those electrons are distributed is a shared system

overall. I know that that's not necessarily a direct way. Hoping to hear actually was that

other jurisdictions are part of that entire network and so what we're seeing on dots on

the map are not just who feed Denver's need and what we might not be seeing on the map are other

either feeder lines or substations that contribute to denver's needs so um i can follow up with a

better picture for that at another time the only other question i have and i'll turn it back to

woman sawyer um is uh can can you follow up with um since 2015 so like a 10-year look back

on uh approved rate increases um that were approved by the puc okay thank you absolutely

do that and i will just say um to your other point councilwoman on a shared system on the electric

side i think um it's a total of 12 or 13 substations that we would potentially have planned

for the city of denver and overall what we've applied for with the distribution system plan

is 53 new substations in the entire state of colorado right so um so you think about i mean

obviously the city of denver is one really important place but you know you've got a

tremendous amount of growth going on in aurora and arapaho county adams county douglas county

jefferson county and so we've got um we are contemplating 53 new substations across our system

thank you councilman sorry thanks i will say

Thank you.

Especially because there is a massive transmission project that is happening in District 5 right now from the Leedsdale substation all the way across the city over to Elati substation.

It is multi-year, many, many, many, many, many, many millions of dollars.

Our office has received zero complaints from residents on that.

And so I just want to acknowledge that and say thank you.

Knock on wood.

So I just want to say thank you.

I mean, I know that it is new and, you know, it is just starting.

But I think that that's really extraordinary because it's a big project going right down the middle of residential streets for the next five years and inconveniencing the neighbors.

and we have received zero comments on it from our residents,

which just speaks to the, I think, the improvements that you guys have made

since hearing our feedback earlier in the year about

customer service and communication and outreach and all of those different things.

So I just wanted to take a minute. And it's just contemplating, I think, just

regular impact, right? I mean, I think originally we were going to go down third.

Yeah. Thanks for not doing that. Well, I mean, based off

the feedback from cherry creek millich district and the and all of the customers and the small

businesses i mean the disruption of what that would mean going down third versus fourth

is you know i mean the least of two right not on major impact so thank you but obviously we

can always do better not going to say that you know our communication and our coordination and

thinking about what impact feels like for our customers and our neighborhoods is not important

so hopefully we can continue to do good but we just always need to get better and your guys

feedback is important to that. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks. Yeah. Just want to say thank you for

coming. Thank you for having the session. And at one time we had talked about is there a way in our

development plan or pre-concent plan to get you on the queue first and does that need to be

regulated in our zoning code so that we can queue that up. I know I was working on that and then

other things happened in our country that have taken a lot of our time but that's still something

that i think about as we look about think about all the ones you mentioned but also think about

the broncos moving out of northwest denver west and northwest denver what does that look like in

the future um that's our land that will be our responsibility um for all of those acres so those

are things that i keep thinking about in the future and what's on the horizon um while we're

all dealing with all of the um really concerning issues that are facing our federal government and

trickling down to us so it's not something i have i've not forgotten about it's just something i

haven't had time to work on but thank you all for the presentation and we appreciate you all being

here and council members if you haven't had an opportunity to have your council aides provide

feedback i know that grace has been going around meeting with all of the council aides so that as

they do constituent services they hear directly from our offices on how they can better support

our offices and what they're hearing they don't you don't know knowledge is power right so i would

just ask that your council aids please take up that opportunity and the council to do constituent

services so that can be shared out and they can maybe build out a better system.

So thank you for all of the meeting and we'll see you in 25 minutes and we'll see you in

Next door, I've actually parked there.

So food-wise today, what they brought us, they're making Rocky Mountain Pizza.

Actually, a really good-looking pizza right here.

This one's got pepperoni and sausage.

We also have a choice of tinned fish, which is smoked salmon.

They're getting the pretzel from Lodo Bakery, my friend Jan, downtown just by the milk market.

And then more friends, Denver Chip Company, Dylan and Connor, love those guys.

And then Kettlehead Popcorn, I think that's local too, actually.

What beers did they bring us today?

So this is a Dom Blanche.

This is a Plouat Saison, beer de gourd.

So this one's got pumpkin in it.

This is a double and this is a triple.

I think if we start on this side, it would make sense to me.

Let's drink.

That's a patio beer right there.

That is a porch pounder.

Let's go pluot.

Oh, that tastes like a sour, actually.

That's got plum and apricot in it.

And then this is going to be our pumpkin.

Well, that's interesting.

We got some nutmeg and ginger in there.

That really goes great with the pumpkin.

And this is, now we're getting a little stronger.

That reminds me a lot of, like, Newcastle Brown.

And then a triple.

I think I'm going to be pretty drunk.

So they did all.

They all went up in alcohol content.

So obviously, single, double, triple, quad goes up in alcohol content.

But I found it really drinkable.

All right, let's try some pizza.

Think about after having a double, triple, and a quad.

You're going to love this pizza.

Let's eat.

Shockingly good.

So if you're into Belgian beers, even if you're not, you can't be bruised off facts.

They got this great courtyard out here.

something happening every day. Food's really good and the drinks are exceptional. This is some of

the best beer I've had this year. Did you know there's a crazy mountain tap room on East Colfax

in Ogden? I didn't and I kind of like know these things. So it's just a teeny bit off these Colfax

right by the Ogden Theater. And if you're going to a concert at the Ogden Theater the day of,

show your ticket here, buy one, get one free beers. Pretty good deal. We're here on a Thursday

because they do barbecue Thursday, Friday, Saturday. It's Barbecue Daddy. There's a little

kitchen in the back of the tap room and they're smoking their barbecue down in Castle Rock and

and then driving it up here.

So Thursdays and Fridays, four to eight,

Saturdays, 12 to eight.

Great sampling.

We'll get into the barbecue,

but first I need a drink.

Crazy Mountain is famous for their Pokébob.

That's their American IPA.

Let's start with that.

Yeah, I can see why they're famous for that.

This is their Take It Easy Mexican Lager.

This is the Colfax Pale Ale.

I got an amber.

Old Riley Stout.

Honey bear cider.

Ugh, somebody called me a cab.

Yeah, they brew all these beers here, but they're actually bringing in seltzers and ciders from other companies.

So if you don't drink beer, there are other things to drink here.

Live music as well, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night.

So I think that's the time to come.

Come get this amazing barbecue, some live music, go to a concert maybe.

Food and wife are doing brisket and pulled pork.

So here's some brisket.

There's the pulled pork.

Four different sauces to choose from.

Carolina White, Bugs Barbecue, Carolina Gold, and Smokin' Joe's.

We have a pulled pork sandwich here, brisket sandwich here, mac and cheese.

These baked beans are really good.

And this is the best coleslaw I've ever had.

You know why?

I put blue cheese in it.

I had one bite of it.

I'm like, what is going on here?

Blue cheese.

Some people don't like blue cheese.

I'm a huge blue cheese guy.

I'm gonna put this coleslaw on one of these sandwiches.

They call this the Mac Daddy.

Mac and cheese, add whatever protein you want

between the brisket and the pulled pork.

And then for dessert, you gotta have banana pudding, right?

At a barbecue place, sorry if you don't have that.

I'm not lying, I'm putting that coleslaw on this sandwich.

You know, coleslaw and pulled pork, right?

Bun feels really good, nice potato bun.

Let's eat.

I couldn't be happier.

That's such a beautiful combination.

That meat is so tender and flavorful.

Got just the right amount of smoke to it.

And the blue cheese coleslaw doesn't overpower it.

Compliments it great.

Pho, wait for it, nominal.

Good Yaya's Mediterranean Grill and Pastries here

on East Colfax and Gaylord.

Family business, parking in the back.

How do I support these businesses on East Colfax?

Where do I park?

They've got parking.

What else do they have?

Reasonably priced food, all homemade.

They do a lunch special Tuesday through Friday for $14.95.

Drink-wise, what did they bring me today?

They brought me a Turkish coffee because the owner originally is from Turkey, then Iraq, then Texas.

You know, it makes a lot of sense.

Perfect.

Like, that's the way everybody goes in life.

And then on to Colorado where they worked in other Mediterranean restaurants before opening up their own place.

Let's run through the food real quick.

We have some tabbouleh over here, so parsley and tomatoes, fried cauliflower.

I've never seen anything like this.

They're calling these cheese rolls.

We got feta and fresh mozzarella in there, great for cheese pulls.

Grape leaves or dolmos.

Ready to try the baba ganoush.

Phenomenal, got a nice lemon flavor.

So baba ganoush is a ground eggplant.

Lentil soup.

Pistachio baklava.

The mom's making all the desserts.

Beautiful display of all the different flavored baklavas they have.

And this is what I'm gonna be having for my meal today.

This is the meat lovers combo.

So some beautiful rice, beautiful hummus.

We have some ground beef, chicken kebab, and lamb kebab.

Instead of croutons, I got peanut chips right here.

House made for the lentil soup.

Lentil soup actually has some sumac in it.

That's something you hear every day.

All right, I'm gonna try all these kebabs.

Where are we gonna start with?

Well, chicken's in front of me.

I'll start with the chicken.

Let's eat.

Cooked perfectly.

I mean, you can see the char in there, but yet not dry at all.

Super moist.

Tons of flavor.

They got a great marinade on it.

As much as I love the chicken, it's getting better with the lamb.

Onto the ground beef.

This is going to be my favorite.

I can tell already.

Hell yeah.

That's a 10.

This is like the best hummus I've ever had, which I'm picky about my hummus.

name is Tyler. We're talking about how much we love this place and how much we'd love to have

one down by us. Lone Tree Parker area. If you're thinking about expanding, we don't have anything

like this. Certainly not of this quality. And we love supporting a mom and pop business.