The Denver Gazette: Xcel Energy, the state’s largest energy company, recently asked the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for permission to pass on $550 million in excess energy costs to ratepayers — rather than to shareholders — to pay its enormous fuel bills for the four-day February 2021 freeze.

The PUC already approved several requests by other utilities to recover those cold-snap related expenses, and if Colorado’s energy regulators greenlight all pending requests, ratepayers would be on the hook for a total of $677 million.

But ordinary Coloradans have for years been denied access to a swath of information, stamped “confidential” in filings, that could help them understand the legitimacy of the request to hike energy bills during a time of skyrocketing inflation and soaring energy costs that are expected to worsen as the war in Ukraine escalates.

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