Attitude is everything. In business, when confronted with a new proposal, you essentially have two options, look at the issue and say—`No, we can’t do that, because….’—or—`That’s an interesting idea, let’s take a look.’ In the utility industry, far too often and for far too long, the prevailing attitude has been to just say no. However, if the industry is to survive in something like its current form, that attitude simply has to change—every new idea isn’t by default a good idea, but dismissing all new ideas out of hand is a recipe for disaster.

One utility that has gotten this message is Xcel Energy, the Minneapolis-based company that serves 3.5 million electric customers through four operating companies in eight states, including Minnesota. Long a proponent of renewable energy—Frank Prager, then the company’s vice president of environmental affairs told me in an interview in 2007 that the company’s wind resources were “a beautiful thing”—the company last month outlined a progressive approach to dealing with changing customer expectations, new technologies and tightening environmental standards in a filing with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The filing—titled Upper Midwest Resource Plan, 2016-2030—should be required reading for executives across the industry (a copy can be found here).

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 A Refreshing Approach
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