Private Electric Service Lines to Homes: What Residents Should Know

Xcel Energy provide the City the following statement:

Xcel Energy’s current standard is to install, own, and maintain any basic electric service to a residential customer. In other words, Xcel Energy will own the cable that runs from our equipment to the meter on the customer’s house. Xcel Energy refers to this as a “company-owned service”.

In the past, Xcel Energy allowed residential customers to install and own their underground service themselves. Xcel Energy refers to these services as “customer-owned” or “private” services. While they don’t meet Xcel Energy's current standards, many of them are still in place. Xcel Energy has confirmed that some homes in this area have private (customer-owned) underground electric service lines.

Private and company-owned services are treated differently when they fault, i.e. something goes wrong with the underground wires, causing an outage. For a company-owned service, Xcel Energy is responsible and will repair or replace faulty service wires at no cost to the customer.

For a private service, the customer is responsible. If there is a fault in a private service the customer can fix the service wires themselves by hiring an electrician or apply for Xcel Energy to replace their faulty service wires with a company-owned service. Once your service is company-owned, Xcel Energy will be responsible for repairing or replacing faulty service wires going forward at no cost. There will be costs associated with converting to a company owned service.

Xcel Energy is mailing letters to customers in this area who are currently known to have private services. The letter will include more detailed information on these options. To find out more information on this topic, please contact Xcel Energy at 1-800-895-4999.