Affording Colorado: Utility costs spike amid infrastructure demands – Denver Gazette

Affording Colorado: Utility costs spike amid infrastructure demands  Denver Gazette

How Colorado utility rates got so expensive and what the state is doing about it. Editor’s note: Affording Colorado is a collection of stories examining the growing financial pressures facing residents across the state, focusing on three key challenges that strain household budgets amid recent policy efforts to address them: childcare, housing and utility costs. The stories explore how Colorado families struggle with the high cost and limited availability of childcare, forcing parents to make difficult decisions about work and family finances; why housing affordability remains out of reach for many renters and prospective homebuyers even as lawmakers pursue changes; and how rising utility bills for electricity, gas and other essential services are creating an additional burden as annual rate increases outpace many household incomes.

A few weeks ago, Colorado’s largest utility reached a settlement with state regulators to increase natural gas rates by 8.6% for residential customers and 9.2% for businesses. And just last August, the Public Utilities Commission approved a 4.77% increase in Xcel Energy’s electric rates. In the last several years, utility customers have faced a series of rate increases in what’s often an underreported facet of life in Colorado — energy bills are rising, adding to what’s become a common narrative about the state. Experts, policymakers and others have pointed to an array of issues they