Excellent point. And keep in mind that this is Colorado, where a lot of people don't have A/C and they do they don't run it as much as I'm used to. (Here in Alabama most of people's power consumption is running the A/C in the hot months.) But to be fair to Colorado folks complaining about Xcel's power rates going up, Xcel also raised their natural gas costs bigly over the winter. I'm sure that's a much bigger deal to them than when us Alabamians have natural gas rate hikes. So they probably see this power hike as an extra slap in the face after the NG hike punched them in the mouth.
I’m sure the natural gas rates hurt more. I’m naturally resistant to people who complain about electric rates. We’ve had a neighborhood in town with ancient underground electrical cables, that were rotting and needing to be repaired constantly, and every time TEP tried to put in above ground replacements they complain and block them. While of course complaining constantly about their reliability problems. After years of listening to them (they finally got their above ground wires) I just naturally assume anybody complaining about the electric company is complaining both sides.