News Releases

Xcel Energy encouraging customers to use payment plans to soften impact of high bill

CARLSBAD, N.M. - Xcel Energy is encouraging Carlsbad-area customers who receive an unusually high electric bill this month to take advantage of a “deferred payment plan” to soften the impact of the high bill.

The utility is offering the easily available credit plan to as many as 6,000 Xcel Energy-served homes and businesses in Carlsbad who may see higher-than-usual bills this month because of meter reading problems in the area this past summer, Xcel Energy spokesman bill Crenshaw said.

“For a while this summer, we did not have enough meter readers working in Carlsbad,” Crenshaw said. “We sometimes relied on computer-generated estimates for this summer’s billings.

“We realize now that in some cases the estimated bills were too low-that led to this month’s ‘true-up’ bill being uncomfortably high for some customers.

“We’re inviting any customer affected by the estimated bills to call us so we can set up a payment plan that will spread the catch-up amount over the next few months of payments.”

Crenshaw emphasized, “Xcel Energy is embarrassed that this happened. We sincerely apologize to the customers affected by it.”

The New Mexico public regulation commission at Santa Fe is carefully monitoring the situation, he said, to make certain the affected customers are billed fairly and accurately.

Customers who want to use a deferred payment plan should contact Xcel Energy at 1-800-895-4999.