Existing Hydro Power on the River, Downtown - What more is NEEDED?

The question is necessity, and not whether promoters can turn a profit if they can maneuver into a profit via operation of a Crown Hydro facility, with subsidy necessary to make the venture work. If it can work without subsidy, then it's sound and needed. The questions: What's there now? What existing hydro capacity is at downtown river locales, and is existing hydro there having to be run at full capacity or kept there as quaint, and as peak demand backup? What river flow allocations are at play - committed already, needed for Crown Hydro to be allocated in order to operate productively, etc., i.e., what reallocation adjustments would Crown Hydro going operational require?

Asthetics aside, is it sound business - again, the key concern.

For info: Click the screenshot below to read, or go to the Xcel website, here.




If this Crown Hydro Phenomenon is a "feel good" propaganda effort paid and delivered by flaks on behalf of rich people looking only to jump subsidy income without being of a scale and need to justify itself aside from tax breaks and/or subsidy, why should the public, via tax breaks or subsidy, pick up any part of the bill for unsound venturing, if that's what's at play? Is it a justifiable business proposal, if all costs and incomes were internalized, and Xcel were not forced to purchase someone's power at a premium over what it could produce itself? Have the Crown Hydro promoters put sound beliveable numbers on the table, and if not will they? "Trust me," well, why if the numbers are not there to be trusted?

These are preliminary questions I have, and am trying to research, but there's much public record at FERC, from years ago, so what's today's dollars and cents truth? Has any such disclosure been forthcoming?

Only soundness without direct or indirect public/ratepayer subsidy at play would justify moving forward. Why should power consumer ratepayer subsidy or public money be put into a questionable business proposition simply because promoters feel they've found a new, smart thing?

Can Crown Hydro promoters drop feel-good propagandizing, clean energy rhetoric, and show hard numbers and sensible projections?

What's Xcel Energy's view in this? Playing politics and agreeing with friends because of the small scale effect it might encounter, or strongly for or against Crown Hydro? Has anyone asked? Has Xcel definitively spoken? They are a player with chips, sitting at the table.