Xcel

Low natural gas prices helped further Xcel Energy in its quest to deliver 100% carbon-free electricity to customers by 2050, with the utility recording its largest single-year decline in emissions in 2019.

Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc. is seeing opportunities to buy more natural gas assets after agreeing to spend $650 million for Mankato Energy Center, according to CEO Ben Fowke.

Texas electricity customers of Xcel Energy could see a 5% bill reduction this summer because of low natural gas prices and a greater reliance on wind energy, the utility said on Monday.

The Mankato Energy Center in Mankato, MN, now has a second combined-cycle unit, completed by Southern Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company.

Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy has torn more than a few pages from the growing western energy playbook in reiterating its commitment to developing zero-carbon electric generation. Xcel released its latest annual corporate responsibility report late last month, including a commitment to extensive carbon emissions reporting in the coming years and decades.

As part of a plan to reduce carbon emissions across its Upper Midwest footprint through the use of more renewables, nuclear energy and natural gas, Xcel Energy said it will retire its last two coal-burning plants in the region a decade earlier than previously scheduled.

While still relatively new to the energy sector’s toolbox, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), aka drones, are playing an increasingly important role in inspections for Minnesota-based Xcel Energy’s Colorado operations.

Unveiled earlier this year as a $2.5 billion proposal to reduce carbon emissions in Colorado, Xcel Energy’s Denver-based utility on Monday was given a green light by state regulators to reduce coal-fired generation and increase natural gas and renewable resources.

Adding a dash of new natural gas-fired generation to a mixing bowl filled mostly with renewable resources, Denver-based Xcel Energy Inc. on Wednesday submitted its energy plan to Colorado regulators, proposing 11 generation sources and a $2.5 billion outlay to cut carbon emissions by 60% in 2026.