Denver, Xcel Energy Sign Energy Future Partnership to Achieve Climate Goals

Today at the Climate Leadership Conference, Mayor Michael B. Hancock and Xcel Energy President - Colorado David Eves signed the Energy Future Partnership, taking a significant step toward building a cleaner, more sustainable energy future.

The Energy Future Partnership will focus on advancing Denver’s renewable energy and emissions reduction goals through innovation, clean energy, economic development and technology.

Working together, local governments and energy companies can achieve greater progress toward key outcomes, including climate action, economic development and technological innovation. Denver and Xcel Energy’s partnership will focus on scaling up clean and local energy that comes from the sun, wind or other renewable technologies, as well as innovative approaches to pilot and demonstration projects. Denver and Xcel Energy have agreed to a set of values and guiding principles including community and stakeholder engagement, regional collaboration, and supporting public policy in alignment with Denver’s renewable energy goals.

“Climate change is real, and it’s increasingly up to cities like Denver, with partners like Xcel Energy, to do what we can to stem the tide of climate change and make our communities more resilient to its affects,” Mayor Hancock said. “We are excited that this new Energy Future Partnership agreement with Xcel will further enable us to collaboratively pursue innovations in technology, clean energy and energy efficiency, and to expand electric vehicle infrastructure access and more to reduce carbon emissions.”

“We are pleased to partner with Denver in this ‘Energy Future Collaboration’ to jointly advance its energy-related objectives by combining Denver’s vast expertise on many energy issues with our core business capabilities,” said Eves.  “Denver is the second community to take part in this new collaborative framework, which can be adopted by other Colorado communities to partner with Xcel Energy in achieving their local energy priorities – ranging from sustainability objectives to economic development and energy innovation goals. Denver and Xcel Energy have a 100-year tradition of working together — we’re excited to move forward with this comprehensive collaboration that can lead the way for communities and their energy providers to achieve local energy targets in a scalable fashion.”

Partnerships like this will help Denver reach the climate goal of reducing community greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050.

For more information about Denver’s efforts to address climate change, visit www.denvergov.org/climate.