Xcel Energy History

The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.“

Also in 1912 Byllesby and Insull parted ways.

On February 5, 1916, Byllesby changed his company's name to Northern States Power Company.

Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) was formed in 1923 to provide an electric generating station for the Denver area.

The Colorado Power Co. and its subsidiary Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power in Wyoming came under the PSCo name on September 3, 1924.

All of the old Ottumwa properties were sold in 1925, except transmission lines in northern Iowa.

On February 23, 1937, NSP suffered its first labor strike.

In 1939 the company continued to expand in Wisconsin.

In 1942 NSP's president, Robert Pack, retired, turning over his office to his assistant, Ted Crocker.

By the time PSCo became an independent and autonomous operation in November 1943, it served 80 percent of Colorado’s gas and electricity needs.

Sales for 1945 were a record $53 million.

NSP's customer base grew so rapidly that when President Ted Crocker died unexpectedly on June 29, 1947, and B.F. Braheney took over, he was faced with a power shortage.

In 1950 NSP sold the utility properties of its Illinois-based subsidiary, Interstate Light & Power Company, and dissolved it.

In 1955 NSP ranked among the top ten utilities in the United States.

In October 1957, NSP-Wisconsin acquired properties from Wisconsin Hydro Electric Company.

In May 1961 NSP acquired Western Power and Gas Company's eastern business, which served the southeastern portion of South Dakota.

In 1962 NSP sold its Tracy, Minnesota, water utility to the city of Tracy.

All went smoothly for NSP through 1965.

The tide turned in 1966, however, when NSP announced its plans for the Monticello nuclear plant.

Despite an injunction—later lifted—brought by the Wisconsin attorney general, the company went ahead with the plant, which began production in 1968.

In 1971 NSP donated land skirting the Upper St Croix River to the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin and to the National Park Service to be managed cooperatively.

In 1971 NSP donated land skirting the Upper St Croix River to the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin and to the National Park Service to be managed cooperatively. It had added a second nuclear plant, Prairie Island, in 1973.

Pine, Carol, NSP, Northern States People: The Past 70 Years , Minneapolis: North Central Publishing, 1979.

In 1987 NSP merged its subsidiary, Lake Superior District Power Company, into NSP-Wisconsin.

In December 1991 the commission granted a smaller increase, $53.5 million.

In 1992 the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved the storage of spent fuel rods in 17 above-ground casks outside the Prairie Island nuclear power plant.

Ruling that the above ground casks amounted to permanent storage, the Court of Appeals sent the issue to the Minnesota state legislature which gave final approval in 1994.

By late 1996 the NSP-WEC merger was in limbo.

Northern States Power and Wisconsin Energy Corporation had planned to merge into a new outfit that was to be called Primergy - but in 1997, the merger fell through because of the time it was taking to gain the required approvals from state and federal agencies.

Since 1998, Xcel Energy's Windsource program has allowed customers to designate that part or all of their electricity comes from a renewable energy source.

Wholesale power prices had fallen 90 percent since 1999, putting NRG on the ropes.

NRG Energy was expected to bring in 20 percent of NSP's earnings by the year 2000.

Huber, Tim, "Xcel Energy Gets Back to Basics with New Projects," Saint Paul Pioneer Press , April 24, 2005.

In 2011, Xcel Energy’s transmission system was worth $3.3 billion.

In 2014, the total charitable investment by the company was $13,844.895.

In 2015, about 96,000 people were enrolled in Windsource.

In 2016, Xcel Energy announced the Advanced Grid Intelligence and Security (AGIS) initiative, a long-term effort related to power reliability, distributed generation, and information sharing with customers.