Nearly five years after Boulder voters opted to stay with Xcel Energy and end a decade-long bid to form a city-run utility, a new campaign could reignite the debate over how the city gets its power — and who should provide it.
A group of residents has launched a petition to place a measure on this fall’s ballot that would allow Boulder to terminate its 2020 franchise agreement with Xcel and seek an alternative energy provider for the city.
That agreement was part of a 2020 ballot measure in which voters chose to end the city’s decade-long push to form a municipal utility. In return, Xcel committed to specific carbon reduction targets and pledged to help Boulder reach 100% renewable electricity by 2030. The deal also included defined off-ramps before the agreement expires in 2041 — including in 2026, when the city can exit for any reason, and in 2025 and 2028 if Xcel fails to meet its climate obligations.
So far, Xcel has missed the emissions benchmarks outlined in the agreement for both 2022 and 2024.
If successful, the proposed ballot measure would give Boulder the option to partner with a new power supplier — as other Colorado cities like Fountain have done — or potentially revive the idea of a city-run utility.
Supporters say this is not an attempt to relitigate the past fight over municipalization but a response to a changing climate and increasingly strained grid.
“It’s time for a new model,” said Leslie Glustrom, a longtime climate activist and the campaign manager for the Committee for Boulder Power measure. Glustrom, who helped lead the previous municipalization push, said the goal is to move beyond Xcel’s outdated, centralized approach to energy.
“[The people at Xcel are] good people. They work hard, they’re competent. They care. In no way am I ever trying to undermine their integrity in any way, shape or form,” she said. “But a monopoly is a monopoly.”
Detractors, however, say there’s too much at stake to walk away now — warning that ending the agreement could damage the city’s working relationship with Xcel, delay key projects and leave Boulder without a clear backup plan.
The proposal lands at a time of heightened anxiety over energy infrastructure. Boulder County residents are still grappling with the legacy of the Marshall Fire, which destroyed more than 1,000 homes in 2021 and has been linked in part to a downed Xcel power line. And last spring, Xcel preemptively shut off power with minimal warning during a windstorm to prevent another disaster — leaving hospitals, critical facilities, businesses and vulnerable residents without electricity for up to days.
The company’s actions drew harsh criticism. At the same time, Xcel has touted its progress toward a cleaner grid, pledging to supply 80% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. That commitment helped secure voter support for the 2020 franchise deal, which included the milestones for local climate progress and an option to exit the agreement in designated years — including 2025.
The new campaign takes advantage of that clause. It proposes to end the franchise and explore new paths forward — such as partnering with an independent provider or eventually adopting a distributed energy resource management system, or DERM, that taps into solar panels, wind farms, battery storage and other decentralized technologies.
Critics, including some of the architects of the 2020 agreement, warn that unraveling the deal now could have costly and destabilizing consequences.
Former Boulder Mayor Sam Weaver, who once supported municipalization but helped broker the 2020 deal, said canceling the franchise could put Boulder back on “oppositional footing” with Xcel and risk jeopardizing the work the company has promised to do in Boulder.
“What are we going to get if we go end the franchise?” Weaver said. “Because we will almost certainly lose something. We’ll lose whatever amicable working relationship we have with Xcel right now.” He added that he worries the company would stop its work undergrounding powerlines — one of the concessions in the current deal.
Under the agreement, Xcel must spend 1% of Boulder’s gross electric revenues — about $1.1 million a year at the current rate — to bury overhead powerlines. The goal is to improve reliability and performance while also reducing wildfire risks. But fully undergrounding Boulder’s system would cost far more. The company has completed one mile of undergrounding along North Broadway from Violet Avenue to U.S. 36 in 2022, and about half a mile along 19th Street between Upland and Norwood avenues in 2024. Boulder has about 165 miles of power lines, according to Boulder Beat.
While the city’s 2020 agreement caps acquisition costs at $200 million, that figure does not include the cost of separating from Xcel’s system, building new infrastructure or covering startup expenses — and the city says it does not currently have updated estimates for those. Weaver said any new push to leave Xcel must come with a detailed plan for what happens next — something he believes is currently missing.
In response to potential criticisms about how much this could cost, Glustrom pointed to Xcel’s profits, which she said exceed $20 million a year from Boulder alone, based on the company’s financial reports. By contrast, the city’s now-abandoned municipalization effort cost just over $25 million in total — about $2.5 million annually, according to the city. Glustrom framed that as “a monthly cost of a latte or two for most households.”
Whether voters agree remains to be seen. The Committee for Boulder Power must collect at least 3,401 valid signatures by May 28 to qualify for the November ballot. Glustrom declined to say how many have been gathered so far.
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