Public Safety Power Shutoffs and Related Outages Frequently Asked Questions

Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025: Xcel de-energized a small number of power lines that impacted:

• North Boulder – Area of concern was the Highway 36 corridor from Jay Road to Neva Road and Lee Hill Drive.
• Civic Center, Chautauqua and University Hill areas west of Broadway, south of Canyon – Area of concern was western perimeter where power lines come into town at Sunshine Canyon, Flagstaff, Open Space areas around Chautauqua
• Far South Boulder (excluded Shanahan Ridge neighborhood) – Area of concern was Eldorado Canyon, Marshall, Shanahan Ranch

Friday, Dec. 19, 2025: Xcel de-energized an expanded number of power lines that impacted:

• North Boulder – Area of concern was the Highway 36 corridor from Jay Road to Neva Road and Lee Hill Drive
• North to North Central Boulder – Area of concern was the western perimeter in the Wonderland Lake/Foothills Park area
• Central West Boulder, generally west of Broadway from Chautauqua to Mapleton – Area of concern was Sunshine Canyon and Western Foothills
• Far South Boulder (included Shanahan Ridge neighborhood) – Area of concern was Eldorado Canyon, Marshall, Shanahan Ranch
• Area west of Foothills Parkway, generally between Baseline and Arapahoe – Area of concern was the open space areas around Baseline Reservoir and to the south
• Gunbarrel – Areas of concern included wildlands proximate to Boulder Reservoir and along Jay Road.

Two factors drove the larger de-energized area on Friday, Dec. 19.

First, wind conditions differed between the two days. On Wednesday, high winds were largely concentrated along the base of the foothills. On Friday, forecasts showed strong winds covering a much broader area, including the mountains and pushing farther east into Boulder.

Second, wind on Wednesday caused damage to some power lines. While crews restored service quickly, damage created additional concern going into Friday due to the cumulative stress on the system and the increased severity of the forecasted winds.

Wind speed is only one of several factors considered when assessing wildfire risk. Wind direction and angle are equally important, as both influence the force placed on power lines. Xcel uses detailed modeling and meteorological data to evaluate the likelihood that a line could fail under specific conditions.

Another critical factor is fire behavior. Xcel’s risk models consider nearby fuels such as grasses and trees, current drought conditions, temperature and humidity levels, and what could be in the path of a fire if one were to start. In previous decades, winter wind events were more likely to occur over snow-covered ground, with vegetation less receptive to fire. A changing climate is reducing that buffer. Warmer temperatures are delaying snowfall, drying out vegetation, and extending dangerous fire conditions further into winter.

Risks have changed significantly over the past 10 to 20 years. Trees across the region are increasingly stressed by drought and disease, making them more likely to fail during high winds and contribute to fire spread. At the same time, growth into wildland areas has placed more people and structures at risk. This heightened danger is evident not only in Colorado, with fires such as Marshall and Waldo Canyon, but across the western United States. Historically, failures to de-energize power lines during extreme conditions have been a leading cause of some of the most catastrophic wildfires.

Substantial damage occurred due to the high winds. Throughout Boulder, there were damaged trees and limbs, as well as other flying debris that struck power lines. Several power poles were broken. The system will also shut the power off if lines begin to oscillate or slap around, since this can lead to arching and sparks.

Before power can be restored, each affected line must be inspected to confirm it is safe to re-energize. Even after winds subside, damaged equipment can pose a serious risk of fire, injury, or death if power is restored too quickly.

In addition, the wind event caused widespread damage across the Front Range. As a result, many power lines, including those that were proactively de-energized, required inspection and, in some cases, repair before service could be restored. Although Xcel had at least 200 crews working, the scope of damage meant restoration took time.

The electric system serving Boulder is a complex network of hundreds of miles of power lines. More than 30 individual lines serve the community, each originating at a substation and branching in different directions. Multiple substations supply power to the city.

Some power lines serve both areas within Boulder and areas outside city limits, often passing through open space or wildland areas. Other lines serve only urban areas. Proactive shutoff decisions are based on whether any portion of a power line passes through a high wildfire-risk area, not on individual neighborhoods or blocks.

As a result, one home may lose power because the line that serves it also runs through a high-risk area miles away, while a neighboring home remains energized because it is served by a different line that does not pass through wildland areas.

For example, one of the power lines serving parts of North Boulder also extends north along U.S. 36 and west toward Lee Hill, areas that posed elevated wildfire risk due to wind, vegetation and drought conditions. Other parts of North Boulder are served by a different line that did not meet the threshold for proactive de-energization.

Yes, a failing power line poses a fire risk anywhere. However, within urban areas, that risk is generally lower due to irrigation, reduced fuels, and faster fire response capabilities.

Because shutting off power also creates public health and safety risks, lines that serve only urban areas typically remain energized. In those cases, Xcel relies on protective devices installed on the system to quickly de-energize a line if a failure occurs.

No. While Xcel will continue to use PSPS as a tool to reduce wildfire risk during extreme conditions, it is also investing in measures to reduce both the frequency of PSPS events and the number of customers affected.

These measures include replacing wood poles in high-risk areas with composite materials, installing insulated lines, undergrounding lines where feasible, and adding equipment that allows Xcel to isolate smaller sections of the system rather than de-energizing an entire power line.

PSPS decisions are also not based on wind alone. They depend on whether wind conditions, combined with drought, vegetation, and other factors, create an elevated wildfire risk. For example, although winds were strong in the western foothills during the week of Dec. 8, 2025, Xcel did not implement a PSPS because recent snowfall reduced fire risk.

In addition to widespread pole and wire replacement and enhanced vegetation management to reduce the risk of trees collapsing on power lines, Xcel has begun projects to underground power lines in high-risk areas around Boulder. This includes completed projects and projects expected to begin construction in 2026:

• Chautauqua (main project is now complete)
• 75^th Street from Lookout to the city’s wastewater treatment facility just south of Jay Road.
• Hwy 36 from approximately Jay Road to Neva Road.
• Hwy 93 from South Boulder to Hwy 128
• Areas of South Boulder in the vicinity of CU South
• Areas proximate to Boulder and Sunshine Canyons

Additionally, Xcel has been and will continue to install additional devices throughout the community that will allow them to reduce the number of customers that have to be shut off.

Finally, Xcel will be rebuilding the large transmission line that runs through our western foothills, including the Mount Sanitas Open Space and down Sunshine Canyon. Xcel is already in permitting for this project and hopes to begin the first phase in early 2026.

The 2024 PSPS affected a significantly larger area of Boulder. During the more recent PSPS events, Xcel deenergized fewer power lines and used newly installed equipment to reduce the number of customers affected. Xcel also began notifying customers earlier about the potential for a PSPS and reached more people through expanded media outreach and coordination with local government partners. In addition, Xcel worked more closely with emergency management offices before and during the events than it did in 2024.

In contrast, the two PSPS events in 2025 affected a broader geographic area outside of Boulder, including Golden and communities along the I-70 corridor.

No. Grid power was maintained at the facility throughout the event. For a short period of time on Friday, one of the two redundant services to the facility was without power, but Xcel was quickly able to restore the second feed. The city also had solutions implemented to mitigate impacts should the facility lose power.

Yes. Both the PSPS and the subsequent outages caused by wind damage had an extensive impact on city facilities and infrastructure. However, the city was able to maintain critical services, including water delivery, water treatment, major intersection signals and emergency response through backup power generation. The city had success working with Xcel to reduce impacts on critical infrastructure, as well as to accelerate restoration where outages occurred.

Even if the city had municipalized, fully separated from Xcel and undergrounded every line within the city (something that would have taken decades to complete), parts of the community would have still been impacted by outages during these wind events. This is because the city would still depend on Xcel’s transmission lines for electricity.

No. Xcel would still own the poles and wires even if the city joined a CCE.

Mircrogridding the entire city or at least large areas could have reduced outages. However, this is not as simple as it might sound and would be cost prohibitive. Effectively, it would be like rebuilding the entire electric system from scratch. At a smaller scale, though, microgrids can be effective and, in fact, there are many operating microgrids throughout the community already. For example, the city uses what is effectively a microgrid to keep its water utility operating during outages.

Yes. There has been news coverage of outages and power line damage for CORE Electric, United Power, Poudre Valley, Estes Park, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins utilities. On Dec. 17, several fires in Yuma County were reported with indications that the cause was downed power lines.

To date, Xcel is the only utility that we are aware of that has used a PSPS. However, like Xcel, many utilities implement wildfire safety settings, which will de-energize lines if a fault is detected.

As Xcel was preparing for the PSPS, they were making every effort possible to reduce the impact on customers. Just before executing the PSPS, they were able to have a crew reroute electricity to the Shanahan Ridge neighborhood. However, later in the day, the high winds caused an outage that impacted the entire southwest and west central areas of Boulder. Xcel could not exclude Shanahan Ridge from the Dec. 19 PSPS.

For example, messages that our power was restored when it wasn’t or that it would be hours later before it would be restored when it was already restored. Will the City do anything to make sure Xcel is more transparent and provides better information to customers?

Yes. City leadership intends to do an after-event review with Xcel to raise this and other issues. We are sharing our experiences and concerns with the Public Utilities Commission, who are preparing for a rulemaking that will establish regulatory guidelines for PSPS.

Yes. This is exactly why Xcel is implementing targeted undergrounding in the wildfire risk areas. Xcel received approval from the Public Utilities Commission to invest in such undergrounding over the next three years. Xcel has already begun the construction process for several projects that we expect to be completed in 2026.

There are several reasons that Xcel cites as to why undergrounding is not appropriate in all cases:

• It is far more expensive to build underground than overhead. This is due to factors such as excavation costs and the more costly power line materials that are necessary to protect against corrosion.
• The larger, heavier cables used for underground are not suitable for sloped areas or areas that require tight turns.
• While underground lines tend to suffer fewer outages, when outages do occur, they take far longer to troubleshoot and repair.

Yes. Xcel is also installing insulated wires and non-wood poles in areas of concern. Additionally, they have replaced fuses and other equipment with types that prevent sparking when they are triggered due to faults.

More than 60% of the power lines within the city limits are underground.

The city does not have the authority to require Xcel Energy to underground all power lines.

Many of the line segments that prompted the recent proactive outages are located outside city limits. Even if all lines within Boulder were undergrounded, outages still would have occurred, and the city cannot regulate infrastructure beyond its jurisdiction.

Within the public right-of-way, the city has limited regulatory authority. Boulder already requires undergrounding for new development and redevelopment, which reduces the number of new overhead lines over time. While the city could technically require undergrounding of some existing lines through a local ordinance, state law requires that any associated costs incurred by Xcel would be passed on to the city. The city has no mechanism to require Xcel to absorb those costs, which could exceed $100 million.

The city also does not have regulatory authority over power lines located in private easements. Many of the wind-related outages occurred on lines that run through back-of-lot easements on private property.

Finally, undergrounding can shift costs to customers. In many cases, residents and businesses would need to pay to underground their individual service lines and potentially upgrade meters and electrical panels to accommodate the change.

The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has invited Xcel’s customers to share their experiences. Additional information and the submission form can be found on their website.