Heat Is Not a Luxury: Coloradans Organizing to Fight High Utility Bills

Over the last few weeks, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, Governor Jared Polis, Xcel Energy and representatives from the state’s oil and gas industry have all joined the conversation about this winter's crazy-high utility bills.

But none of the discussion has done much to help people who are struggling, says Thornton’s Janelle Carwin, who joined a January 31 listening session held by the PUC with the moniker “heat is not a luxury.” Since then, she’s been gathering people who feel the same way, starting a Facebook group to share information and organize. In under two weeks, the group already has 175 members.

“It's slowly gaining numbers,” Carwin says. “I've kind of taken a stance of: I'm going to be the voice for as many people as I can. I know a lot of people don't know what's going on, so I was really trying to educate people about why their bill is going up, and I've been on pretty much every single call that the PUC has had, before even the public comments.”

Through social media, she hopes to connect with others with more expertise and ideas about solutions. “What I would really like to happen with the group is posting resources to LEAP and different things like that so people can try to get help,” she says. “I don't think we should need a government program to pay our bills, but I’m trying to get those resources to people to try and help them.”

LEAP is the state’s Low-income Energy Assistance Program, designed to assist people with home heating costs in the winter. According to Carwin, the mere existence of such a program shows that heating bills are too high. She considers herself fortunate to be able to pay her bills — despite the fact that the last two totaled $500 and $470 — but she knows that others can’t, and she says Xcel wasn’t helpful when she asked the company how she could improve her home to bring her bill down.

Carwin uses Xcel only for the gas at her home, which is a new build in Thornton. The electricity is through United Power, an energy cooperative. She’s implemented efficiency changes, including setting her home to 65 degrees when someone is there and 62 when the home is empty. She also has double-pane windows and spray-foam insulation.

When she emailed a Consumer Advocate Analyst at Xcel, the analyst told her that minor adjustments like adding a water heater insulation blanket or hiring a contractor to use an X-ray to see if some spots could use more insulation could help a bit, but that Carwin’s home is already very efficient.

"Without fully understanding this customer’s information, such as when these improvements were made, reviewing their bill history prior to the improvements and compare bill impacts from cold weather or whether they also had air sealing performed at the same time the insulation was completed, we can’t address why this customer’s bill remains high," says Xcel spokesperson Tyler Bryant. "However, we encourage all customers to reach out to us directly to see what energy-efficiency upgrades may have the most impact on their energy bills."

According to Xcel, outdoor air temperature and customer behavior impact the actual savings from energy-efficiency improvements. Even so, the company says that those who use its insulation and air-sealing products can expect a bill reduction of 15 to 20 percent. Xcel offers rebates for those programs if done through a participating contractor.

Since Carwin didn't get specific answers on how to decrease her Xcel bill, she attributes the $30 decrease on her most recent bill to the decreased cost of natural gas, as Xcel passes the market cost to customers. Yet the company publicizes such decreases as a kindness to customers, she notes.

“Yeah, your bill is going down 15 percent. That sounds great,” Carwin says. “But when you look into the facts, that is not the situation. A 10-degree difference in outside temperature will substantially change your bill. It's like, okay, you're not lowering my bill. Mother Nature is lowering my bill.”

Carwin is inspired to learn more and share the stories of those who are struggling.

“When people see my situation, they're like, ‘Well, you can afford your heat. What do you care?’” she says. “I'm fighting for the people who don't have the voice, who don't have the resources, who don't have the time...especially our elderly people and our veterans. Not that anyone's less important, but those people have paid their dues, and they can't have something as simple as this?”

She’s also taking the fight off Facebook, contacting several Thornton City Council members, though she found they didn’t know much that could help her. Her next idea is to reach out to Polis directly, and she doesn’t rule out organizing a protest at the State Capitol.

While Xcel doesn’t seem to care, Carwin hopes that some state regulators do, particularly PUC Commissioner Megan Gilman.

“I don't know much about her, but from what I have seen from the Zoom calls, I feel like she is one of the people that does look at the full picture,” Carwin says. “She made a very great point of: Xcel needs to have skin in the game so they can fight for lower fuel prices, because if they're just passing that cost to the consumer, they have no skin in the game to make it cheaper, because they're not losing anything.”

Carwin appreciates Polis drawing attention to the situation, too, but she doesn't see many of his proposed directives, which were announced at a February 6 press conference, as viable solutions for those struggling right now.

Polis’s immediate directives instruct the PUC to identify ways to support customers in dire circumstances, mainly by making sure people have access to the state’s programs already designed to help. However, most of the governor’s directives to the commission relate to long-term solutions, including working to incentivize utilities to reduce consumer costs and identifying ways to improve gas contracting, gas storage and financial hedging on natural gas. Polis also focused on switching to renewable energy from natural gas.

Although Carwin hasn’t yet found an ally in government, she has found allies in her fellow citizens — including Candy Lewis, who has lived in Denver for 47 years and whose bill last month totaled $629. When Lewis heard people describing the negative impact that high utility bills were having on their lives, she stepped in to speak at the PUC listening session, even though she hadn’t been planning to do so.

“I hadn't had a shower. I was in my pajamas just listening to it online with my son,” Lewis recalls. “I’m one of these people where I just feel people's pain. That's why I spoke up, and I'm thinking, you've got to be there to help people and lift them up, because there's too much out there where people are just tearing people down.”

Lewis is pushing for optimism in the fight for affordable heating.

“We've got to eliminate the greed and the power and the money with these monopolies,” she says. “They need to know that we can't be doing this to people.”

Meeting others who share her passion for the fight has kept her motivated, Lewis says. But as she continues to gather resources, she’s still looking for someone in charge to step up with a concrete solution.

“I'm not gonna give up, I will tell you that. I will fight this till I'm blue in the face,” Carwin says. “People should not have to choose between life and death, for some heat or putting food on the table. This isn't a luxury. It's not like wearing Jordans, or Christian Louboutins or a Michael Kors purse. This is plain and simple.”