Again and again, people have Sterling Ranchsouth of Chatfield Reservoir, were struggling with a power outage.
On Friday it was out of service for about five hours.
“I was at the dentist’s office having my implant cleaned when the power went out in the middle of it. I can imagine how the other people there felt,” said Patti Kleewein.
Linda Amato and her partner Randy Lee have been in the community for about five years.
“We assumed that the infrastructure of a new community would be able to cope with this, but that is obviously not the case.
“For the first four years, three and a half years, we had no blackouts at all. In the last year or year and a half, we’ve seen a significant increase,” Amato said.
Monday night, Xcel Energy Leadership appeared at a community meeting and was somewhat shaken by people upset about the ongoing outages. Xcel said it was looking into the frequency and causes of the outages. Since the beginning of the year, 46 outages have been recorded.
“We hope to find a solution to these problems tonight. We want to figure out how we can contain the power outages and provide a comfortable life for our citizens,” said Gary Debus, general manager of the Community Authority Board, which oversees the community like an HOA.
“Each of those things alone probably wouldn’t cause the frequency of power outages that you’re seeing. What we’re seeing is the confluence of multiple events and things and events,” said Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy Colorado. “Some of it is related to the enhanced power line safety settings.”
The higher settings were used this year as Xcel tries to prevent wildfires from starting.
Growth is adding to this burden, Kenney said.
“So it’s not just a single problem that we’re seeing,” he said. “There are also extremely high temperatures that are also putting stress on the system. So it was a confluence of several different causes at once.”
Kenney said Xcel is also reviewing the settings on the lines that cause a power interruption. Such settings are designed to prevent fires, but in the region, the increased sensitivity of the settings could be something that could be reviewed.
The Sterling Ranch community already has nearly 2,500 homes, but only about 20 percent of the development is complete. Electricity demand will increase significantly in the coming years.
Kenney said Xcel has identified about 300 defects on the two feeders into the area, caused by problems such as old equipment or interference from vegetation. Xcel hoped to have those problems fixed by October. On a similar timeline, the completion of the Waterton substation is expected to provide a third feeder bringing power to the area.
