Attachment B - Power Reliability and Resilience Strategies

Attachment B Summary of Draft Strategies Strategy Core Services Coordinated undergrounding, repairs, upgrades, sectionalization

Coordinated vegetation management

Enforcing franchise agreement

Description Through the Franchise and Energy Partnership, the city would work to ensure Xcel delivers on planned projects. This includes reviewing designs and making recommended improvements, tracking schedules and cross-departmental collaboration to facilitate permitting and land use agreements. A recent example of this was reductions in impact for the March 2026 PSPS where staJ worked with Xcel on strategies to narrow the scope, as well as maintain grid power to city critical infrastructure. The city’s Forestry, Open Space and Utilities teams would work to coordinate clearance of vegetation around power lines on public lands. City staJ would also facilitate resolution of community-wide vegetation concerns with Xcel. A recent example of this a tree inventory review with Xcel to ensure protection of important public trees. The city would ensure Xcel is complying with the terms of its Franchise Agreement, as well as other authorities that grant them monopoly rights to serve the city. The city would pursue recourse through legal and regulatory channels where noncompliance is determined.

Strategy Advocacy at Public Utilities Commission (PUC)

Advocacy for state legislation

Navigational and advisory support (leveraging utility and state incentives)

Description Consistent with council-adopted policy statements, the city would participate in legal proceedings at the PUC to advance community priorities. This would include upcoming proceedings for Xcel’s 20282030 Wildfire Mitigation Plan, PUC Quality of Service rulemaking and Xcel’s upcoming Quality of Service Plan. An example of recent success was the dedication of funding to reduce wildfire and outage impacts specific to the Boulder community in Xcel’s 2025-2027 Wildfire Mitigation Plan. Consistent with council-adopted policy statements, the city would explore legislative strategies that would lead to improves power reliability and resilience. An example of recent success was the addition of mandatory Quality of Service rulemakings and plans being incorporated into Colorado statute during the 2026 legislative session. Through partnership with Boulder County, the city would provide navigational and advising support to residents and businesses to assist in project planning, identify qualified contractors and access local, state and utility grants and incentives. An ongoing example of this is advising staJ working with selected Community Resilience Hub grant selectees to obtain and review quotes for backup battery solutions.

Strategy Collaboration with OJice of Disaster Management (ODM)

Enhanced Services Increase enrollment in emergency alerts and preparedness trainings

Support the business community with preparedness Support and expand community-led education and training opportunities Support community-led resilience hubs, including mobile options

Provide incentives or financing solutions for residential and business backup power

Description Through cross-department collaboration the city would work to support planning and response to outages and emergencies. A recent example of this was coordination during December 2025 and March 2026 PSPS where staJ provided interpretation of Xcel maps to ODM, supported escalation to Xcel of critical facility impacts, staged backup equipment to maintain traJic signals at major intersection and water and sewar operations and provided the PUC with feedback and lessons-learned to support PSPS rulemaking. The city would augment ongoing work of the OJice of Disaster Management to further promote enrollment in emergency alerts and to expand the availability of preparedness trainings. The city would provide advisory support to businesses to assist with the development power outage and emergency plans. The city would oJer ongoing financial support for community-led initiatives. The city would expand on its current resiliency hub pilot program to grow the network of resiliency support for the community and the maintenance of important community services during outages. The city would explore the opportunity to pilot mobile solutions. The city would pursue grant funding and programming support from Xcel and state and federal agencies. The city would leverage utility and state programs, as well as oJer rebates or grants to support residential and business backup power. The city would partner with financing institutions like Coalition Clean Energy Fund to provide low-to-no cost financing for battery installations.

Strategy Elevate and sustain neighborhood resilience eJorts with frontline leaders

Vision Strategies Expand adoption of community solar and storage Create public utility to operate in partnership with Xcel Energy’s power grid

Create neighborhood-scale micro-grids in high-priority areas

Seek creative financing for additional undergrounding

Add permanent backup power for streetlights and traJic signals in high priority areas

Description The city would provide support and financial resources to organizations that work at the neighborhood level on resilience initiatives. The city would also work with frontline leaders to design a new community connectors model that focuses on neighborhood resilience. The city would further expand incentives and programming to support solar and battery adoption. The city would pursue a model similar to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to establish a Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU) that operates in partnership with the serving regulated utility (Xcel). The SEU would serve as the mechanism to provide solar and storage for residents and businesses. The SEU could also own and operate neighborhood level resilience solutions, such as microgrids. The city would pursue public/private partnership with Xcel or other entities to construct neighborhood-scale micro-grids in high priority areas. As needed, the city would implement local regulatory changes and pursue changes to state regulations to enable this strategy. The city would accelerate undergrounding by funding Xcel to underground its power lines. The city would explore financing solutions, such as improvement districts, a bond initiative, a utility tax or other to-bedetermined solutions to fund the project and establish an enterprise or other organizational structure to oversee this likely multi-decade initiative. The city would install permanent backup power for traJic signals and streetlights in major transportation corridors.

Strategy Integrate backup power into future investments in city buildings and expand backup for critical infrastructure

Description The city would install permanent backup power at public-facing city facilities to serve as resilience centers. The city would expand permanent backup installations for other city-owned critical infrastructure.