EXHIBIT 99.01
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Northern States Power Company Cautionary Factors
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the Act) provides a
new "safe harbor" for forward-looking statements to encourage such disclosures
without the threat of litigation providing those statements are identified as
forward-looking and are accompanied by meaningful, cautionary statements
identifying important factors that could cause the actual results to differ
materially from those projected in the statement. Forward-looking statements
have been and will be made in written documents and oral presentations of
Northern States Power Company (the Company). Such statements are based on
management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently
available to management. When used in the Company's documents or oral
presentations, the words "anticipate", "estimate", "expect", "objective",
"possible", "potential" and similar expressions are intended to identify
forward-looking statements. In addition to any assumptions and other factors
referred to specifically in connection with such forward-looking statements,
factors that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from
those contemplated in any forward-looking statements include, among others, the
following:
- - Economic conditions including inflation rates and monetary fluctuations;
- - Trade, monetary, fiscal, taxation, and environmental policies of
governments, agencies and similar organizations in geographic areas where the
Company has a financial interest;
- - Customer business conditions including demand for their products or
services and supply of labor and materials used in creating their products and
services;
- - Financial or regulatory accounting principles or policies imposed by the
Financial Accounting Standards Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission,
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and similar entities with regulatory
oversight;
- - Availability or cost of capital such as changes in: interest rates; market
perceptions of the utility industry, the Company or any of its subsidiaries; or
security ratings;
- - Factors affecting utility and nonutility operations such as unusual
weather conditions; catastrophic weather-related damage; unscheduled generation
outages, maintenance or repairs; unanticipated changes to fossil fuel, nuclear
fuel or gas supply costs or availability due to higher demand, shortages,
transportation problems or other developments; nuclear or environmental
incidents; or electric transmission or gas pipeline system constraints;
- - Employee workforce factors including loss or retirement of key executives,
collective bargaining agreements with union employees, or work stoppages;
- - Increased competition in the utility industry, including: industry
restructuring initiatives; transmission system operation and/or administration
initiatives; recovery of investments made under traditional regulation; nature
of competitors entering the industry; retail wheeling; a new pricing structure;
and former customers entering the generation market;
- - Rate-setting policies or procedures of regulatory entities, including
environmental externalities, which are values established by regulators
assigning environmental costs to each method of electricity generation when
evaluating generation resource options;
- - Nuclear regulatory policies and procedures including operating regulations
and used nuclear fuel storage;
- - Social attitudes regarding the utility and power industries;
- - Cost and other effects of legal and administrative proceedings,
settlements, investigations and claims;
- - Technological developments that result in competitive disadvantages and
create the potential for impairment of existing assets;
- - Factors associated with nonregulated investments including conditions of
final legal closing, foreign government actions, foreign economic and currency
risks, political instability in foreign countries, partnership actions,
competition, operating risks, dependence on certain suppliers and customers,
domestic and foreign environmental and energy regulations;
- - Most of the current project investments made by the Company's subsidiary,
NRG Energy, Inc. (NRG) consist of minority interests, and a substantial portion
of future investments may take the form of minority interests, which limits
NRG's ability to control the development or operation of the project;
- - Other business or investment considerations that may be disclosed from
time to time in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings or in
other publicly disseminated written documents.
- - Factors associated with Y2K compliance that might cause material
differences from the expectations disclosed include, but are not limited to, the
availability of key Y2K personnel, NSP's ability to locate and correct all
relevant computer codes, the readiness of third parties, and NSP's ability to
respond to unforeseen Y2K complications. Such material differences could result
in, among other things, business disruption, operational problems, financial
loss, legal liability and similar risks.
The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future
events or otherwise. The foregoing review of factors pursuant to the Act should
not be construed as exhaustive or as any admission regarding the adequacy of
disclosures made by the Company prior to the effective date of the Act.