Xcel Energy unveils $45B capital plan as data-center pipeline nears 9 GW

• Xcel Energy plans to invest $45 billion in new generation, transmission and other projects over the next five years, President and CEO Bob Frenzel said Thursday during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.
• The company has received 8,900 MW of requests from data center companies, but economic growth is driving just 22% of the total five-year spend, according to the company’s earnings presentation.
• Xcel expects to secure just 25% of the projects in its data center pipeline over the next five years, leaving room for continued growth that could continue into the next decade, Frenzel said.

Dive Insight:

The surge of load growth taking place across the country points to a need for utilities to move at a much faster pace than they have in the past, Frenzel told investors Thursday.

“What you’re seeing … is, obviously, big demand across the country,” he said. “And we know there’s double-counting in a lot of people’s inbound requests as these large loads come looking for transmission and generation service. But it highlights a different need, which is [that] we as a country, we as an industry, need to be accelerating our ability to develop both transmission and generation to serve the load that we think is [going to] come.”

For Xcel, that acceleration will for the next five years take the shape of a $45 billion plan focused on four key areas: clean energy, customer electrification, load growth and reliability, Frenzel said. Transmission and distribution upgrades will claim 63% of the total funding, according to the company’s presentation. Renewables and new generation projects will get 11% and 10%, respectively.

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