Power restored for over 10K Denver-area Xcel Energy customers Thursday

DENVER (KDVR) — Xcel Energy reported over 10,600 customers in the Denver metro region were without power on Thursday at about 1:20 p.m., according to Xcel’s electric outage map .

Xcel Energy told FOX31 that its outage map was “over-calculating” the number of customers without power, but did not have accurate numbers to share. At about 4:30 p.m., the service provider said the map was showing about 4,300 people without power, but the true number was closer to 3,500.

The map showed that the outages were located throughout Denver, Commerce City, Lakewood, Englewood, Wheat Ridge and Centennial. There were also some customers without power in the Boulder area. Xcel said the outage was caused by a tree that fell onto a power line, and that a crew was on scene clearing the debris. Additional crews are staged down the line to ensure it can power up again.

Portions of the eastern plains were under a Red Flag warning, including Weld and Morgan counties, although they are not areas where Xcel’s power outages were reported. Red Flag warnings alert fire managers of federal lands to conditions that could lead to especially dangerous wildfire growth.

Additionally, the region is experiencing high temperatures that could reach the daily record of 99 degrees.

Earlier this year, Xcel Energy submitted a proposed Wildfire Mitigation Plan that would increase residential bills by about 9.56% by 2028 and allow the company to shut off swathes of power if it believes its equipment could spark a wildfire.

The request was partially prompted by hundreds of complaints that were filed after the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office pointed to the electric and natural gas supplier as a possible second-ignition cause of the Marshall Fire on Dec. 30, 2021.

The company was also scrutinized in April after it turned off power to customers during a strong windstorm. The company said the move was to prevent fires from sparking off power lines.

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