Xcel Energy

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Over the next 5 to 6 years, we have planzs to add up to 600 megawattes of concentrating solar withstorage capacity. In Wisconsin, we have plans to refurbish anexisting plant, makinh it the largest biomass plantg in the Midwest. Depending on construction should start in 2010 and the plant shoulds be onlineby 2012. We also are refurbishingh and relicensing hydro plantszin Wisconsin. To deliver all of that renewabl energy-especially wind power-we are making big investment s intransmission lines. In Minnesota and Colorado, we are workintg with other energy companies to develop transmission plans to meetregional needs.
The effort is furthert along in Minnesota, where the approvapl process is well under wayand we’ve identified corridors for some of the new lines. Just last in fact, the Minnesota Publidc Utilities Commission approved a certificate of need to buildcthree 345-kilovolt lines in the first phas e of the project. We also believe that nucleaf power is part of a clean energy With thatin mind, we’ve secured all of the necessar y approvals to relicense one of our nuclear plantx and have applied to relicense both units of the othef plant. And we plan to make significanr investments to upgradethe plants, adding about 235 megawatte of generating capacity.
Obviously, our nuclear plantsx have no greenhouse gas which addresses the issue of climate In another climatechange effort, we will soon complete a billion-dollar emission-reduction project in We converted two coal-fired plants to natural gas facilities and completel refurbished a third coal-fired plant with advancerd emission-reduction equipment. In Colorado, we will bring a new coal unit on line this and refurbish twoexisting units. You mighg be familiar with Comanche 3. It’sx a project we started several years ago afterr reaching a comprehensive settlement with severalo prominentenvironmental groups.
• Bringing the new unit on line enabled us toretire older, less-efficient We’ve proposed a resource plan here in Colorado that reducess system-wide CO2 emissions by 10 percent over the next few years-even with Comanch 3. Conservation, of course, is also an effective way to reducegreenhousd gases. We’ve been working with customers for more than 20 years to help themconserve energy. Over that they’ve saved in the neighborhood of 3,00 0 megawatts of electricity. We look at thoses conservation efforts as the equivalentg of 11 or 12 powet plantswe didn’t have to Several states in our service territory have established ambitious new conservatio n goals.
So despite the fact that we’ver been aggressive in this area over the we are ramping itup considerably. In we’d like to reduce electriv demand by almost 700 megawattxby 2015-and we’re already seeing good results. Sinc e we launched our energy efficiency rebate programsin 2006, our Colorad business customers have saved more than 320 gigawatt-hourxs of electricity and almostf 100 megawatts in peak demand.