St. Paul, Minnesota — The recent extreme weather has led to service issues for certain customers of Xcel Energy. The Commission takes these reports of service issues very seriously and realizes that for the affected households, it may potentially threaten the safety and well-being of the occupants of those households.

Pursuant to a standing Commission directive:

• Each natural gas utility shall report data on service interruptions. Each interruption shall be categorized according to whether it was caused by the utility’s employees or contractors, or whether it was due to any other unplanned cause.

• Each natural gas utility shall also provide summaries of all service interruptions caused by system integrity pressure issues. Each summary shall include the following ten items:

    o the location; 

    o when the incident occurred; how many customers were affected; 

    o how the company was made aware of the incident;

    o the root cause of the incident;

    o the actions taken to fix the problem;

    o what actions were taken to contact customers;

    o any public relations or media issues;

    o whether the customer or the company relighted; and

    o the longest any customer was without gas service during the incident.

• Each natural gas utility shall provide the Commission with notification of reportable events, as defined by the Minnesota Office of Pipeline Safety, contemporaneous with the utility’s notification of the event to that Office, including: o description of the location and cause of the event;

    o the number of customers affected;

    o the expected duration of the event; and

    o the utility’s best estimate of when service will be restored.

As to the Xcel Energy natural gas service issues yesterday affecting the Hugo, Princeton, and surrounding areas, the Commission is monitoring the information we have received so far from the utilities. The Commission will then make decisions as to any next steps that would be appropriate in this, and related, matters.

The Commission encourages any customers who have experienced service issues to contact our Consumer Affairs Office at consumer.puc@state.mn.us or 800-657-3782 | 651-296-0406. The office is staffed by trained mediators who can assist customers in resolving their individual situation with their service provider.

###