Yesterday a filing came over the wire, and I finally got around to reading it.  Odd.  It’s a Compliance Filing, which means that Xcel is filing it to show that they’re in compliance with the CapX 2020 order, in this case it’s the Certificate of Need, docket 06-1115 (to see that docket, GO HERE and search for docket 06-1115).

Xcel’s Fargo-St. Cloud Compliance Report – October 8, 2012

So looking at this, I note a couple of things, first, that they have to make this filing because we were on it at the Certificate of Need stage what seems like a hundred years ago now, and managed to get a requirement that they disclose ownership structure, ownership percentages, AND that they disclose the capacity of the line.  DUH!  Well, it wasn’t such a DUH then or we wouldn’t have had to fight so hard for that.  And here we are, now fully three years after that permit was issued, and they’re just disclosing ownership — see the link above.

A while back, they filed a similar Compliance Filing for the Brookings-Hampton line:

Brookings Compliance Filing – January 26, 2011

And before that, they’d filed another one for the Fargo line:

Fargo Compliance Report from PUC site August 17, 2011:

Fargo – MSC Compliance Filing August 20, 2010 found HERE

The pattern is that they file a Compliance filing, and days later, the Dept. of Commerce files a “Compliance Closure” and it looks to me as if they receive the filing, say, “YUP, dat’s a filing,” check off the box, and file a Compliance Closure.

Filing 8/20/2010, Closure 8/26/2010

Filing 1/14/2011, Closure 1/19/2011

Filing 8/17/2011, Closure 8/23/2011

In their filings, addressing Ownership Structure, they talk of many agreements, but the agreements have not been filed.  They address “Project Owners” but no agreements on that either.  And then there’s “Transmission Capacity.”  They state the design capacity is 2.050 MVA, but the Certificate of Need is for a double circuited line with each circuit having a capacity of 2,050 MVA.  Hmmmmmm…

So, representing No CapX 2020, United Citizens Action Network, and Citizens Energy Task Force, I fired off an Information Request to Xcel Energy, filer of the Compliance Report, and to the Dept. of Commerce, so they’ll notice that there are no agreements in their files (or turn them over if somehow there is something there!). And then I sent that and a few initial comments to the PUC’s Burl Haar and filed it:

Correspondence to Xcel Energy and MN Dept of Commerce Oct 10, 2012

Correspondence to Public Utilities Commission October 10, 2012

Time to sit back and wait…