Pull out your latest bill and buckle up.

ELECTRIC BILLS

Service & Facility

These are charges for the meter on your home, having the meter read, getting billed and Xcel providing customer service.

“Things like a meter, our customer service organization and services that are generally fixed costs,” Berman said. “The piece of your bill related to the meter on your house, to our customer care organization, to other service organizations within the company like IT and finance, where those are fixed costs.”

RETOU On-Peak | RETOU Mid/Pk/Shoulder | RETOU Off-Peak

These are usage charges. For customers with a Smart Meter that are on Time-of-Use rates, these usage charges are broken down into three different lines, based on time-of-day:

• The most expensive charge “RETOU On-Peak” is for usage from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. during the week.
• Mid-Peak is from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays.
• Off-Peak is from 7 p.m. to 1 p.m. during the week, all day on the weekend and holidays.

Customers who are on general residential pricing will see this as one line on their bill.

What does this portion of the bill pay for?

“That’s going to cover everything across our service territory, all of our generating facilities, most of our transmission, our distribution, all of those things that are not considered service and facility,” Berman said.

GRSA E (General Rate Schedule Adjustment)

This is a rate change to cover Xcel’s costs of providing electricity that are not accounted for in the Time-of-Use or general pricing section.

“Step one is to come up with the total amount that the company needs to operate, and then step two is a separate proceeding, to divide that up and say, ‘How should it be divided between your residential, commercial, industrial, all of your different rate classes.’ Those two things happen at different times, and in between those two proceedings, we put kind of a peanut butter spread across those classes,” Berman said.

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