Colby to allow Xcel project on Community Drive

By Nathaniel Underwood

The Colby City Council agreed last week to allow Xcel Energy to move forward with a project on Community Drive that will enable the company to tie-in their resources in Abbotsford and Colby to create more redundancy for their power in the two cities.

While there were some concerns expressed by representatives from Clark Electric, which already has lines in the area, the city council ultimately decided to allow Xcel Energy to continue their plans with tentative agreements between the two energy companies being acknowledged at the meeting.

“I want to make these towns reliable,” Xcel representative Andy Halopka explained. “For some reason, we didn’t do a very good job back in the day of tying our feeders at the T-corners here. We have four feeders and they’re not very redundant as far as supporting each other. So, part of what I want to do is get these loops built amongst the feeders in these towns.”

The loop, which would tie together some of Xcel Energy’s other systems in the area, including a potential new loop to be put together in Abbotsford, would create three redundant loops between Abbotsford and Colby, allowing power to be more quickly restored in the event of an outage.

“When power outages happen and big storms go through, we’ve got a chance to do some switching and get the lights back on in a half hour versus hours,” Halopka added. “It’s very beneficial. It’s good for our system and we want to see your guys’ lights stay on.”

Xcel had previously come to the city council looking to put overhead lines in the area, a proposal the council had not accepted. The new lines in the current proposal would be buried along Community Drive instead.

Halopka stated that Xcel would likely have a contractor, M. J. Electric, do the work for the project and that any restoration to the affected areas would be paid for and taken care of by the company.

Halopka also noted that Xcel Energy was aware of Clark Electric’s presence in the area.

“Clark Electric is in there already as well,” Halopka noted. “That’s fine. I’m not looking to come in there and cause problems with them. I think they’re aware of it, we spoke to them last year about it.”

For any customers who have access to both utilities but are currently served by Clark Electric, PSC rules would prevent Xcel Energy from serving them, he said.

“If nobody is on the parcel, as far as serving it, and we are within 500 feet, both would have rights to it, but we aren’t looking to create an issue with Clark by no means,” he said.

Representatives from Clark Electric, Tim Stewart and Kent Weigel, expressed concern that Xcel Energy would not just be using the lines to create redundancy between their Abbotsford and Colby systems.

“When Community Drive was put in, we were contacted, as well as Xcel, from what I recall, about trying to put in security lights,” Stewart said. “So we actually did that, with the anticipation that all of that would be served by Clark. He talks about PSC rules, and right now we believe strongly that we have exclusive rights to serve this area. We’ve developed it and there are hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment here.”

“We believe that the tie line is not a tie line,” he added. “It’s not [about] reliability. It’s to open up the park. Back when Community Drive was put in, if they wanted to do a tie line, they could have put that in. They didn’t do that, they chose not to do that. So, just to make you aware, that if the tie line goes forward and a customer is connected on Xcel, Clark will be pursuing all of our options with the Public Service Commission to protect our rights underneath the territorial rules.”

The primary property of concern for Clark Electric was a parcel on the east side of Community Drive for which there are plans for S.C. Swiderski, LLC to develop a series of apartments. Halopka insisted at the meeting that Xcel Energy had no plans to attempt to service this development.

“We’re not pursuing that,” he said. “We don’t have any means to pursue that. That’s not my intention coming here today.”

“Anything that’s coming down here, their foot’s in the ground,” Halopka added. “That’s not my ask here, trust me. If I was looking to cut Clark off, I would have pushed more for overhead and pushed it out of their boundaries. My whole idea here is a feeder tie feed.”

Council members expressed that they did not want to see any issues arise between the two companies, noting that they could see the situation from both sides. However, council member also noted that it would ultimately fall on the two companies to communicate with each other and come to some sort of agreement.

Representatives from the two energy companies appeared to come to a verbal agreement that Xcel Energy would not pursue the Swiderski parcel, with Clark wanting a written agreement from Xcel as well.

“I think it’s there for other reasons, that’s my perspective,” Stewart said. “But if they are willing to have an agreement where they would agree not to serve that area, then, yeah, no issue whatsoever.”

Given their discussions and the fact that the city would ultimately not be responsible for any disputes between the two entities, the council voted to allow Xcel to pursue their project along Community Drive.

DISPUTED TERRITORY? - This 2021 map shows the newly extended Community Drive area where Xcel Energy is looking to install a new tie-in line to Abbotsford. The “future street” on the left side (Lot 3) has since been developed.