**Exhibit 99.01**

 

**NSP-MINNESOTACAUTIONARY FACTORS**

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The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act provides a “safe harbor”for forward-looking statements to encourage such disclosures without the threatof litigation, providing those statements are identified as forward-looking andare accompanied by meaningful, cautionary statements identifying importantfactors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from thoseprojected in the statement. Forward-looking statements are made in writtendocuments and oral presentations of NSP-Minnesota. These statements are basedon management’s beliefs as well as assumptions and information currentlyavailable to management. When used in NSP-Minnesota’s documents or oralpresentations, the words “anticipate,” “estimate,” “expect,” “projected,”objective,” “outlook,” “forecast,” “possible,” “potential” and similarexpressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In addition toany assumptions and other factors referred to specifically in connection withsuch forward-looking statements, factors that could cause NSP-Minnesota’sactual results to differ materially from those contemplated in anyforward-looking statements include, among others, the following:

 

·              Economic conditions,including their impact on capital expenditures and the ability of NSP-Minnesotato obtain financing on favorable terms, inflation rates and monetaryfluctuations;

·              Business conditionsin the energy business;

·              Demand forelectricity in the nonregulated marketplace;

·              Trade, monetary,fiscal, taxation and environmental policies of governments, agencies andsimilar organizations in geographic areas where NSP-Minnesota has a financialinterest;

·              Customer businessconditions, including demand for their products or services and supply of laborand materials used in creating their products and services;

·              Financial orregulatory accounting principles or policies imposed by the FinancialAccounting Standards Board, the SEC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissionand similar entities with regulatory oversight;

·              Availabilityor cost of capital such as changes in: interest rates; market perceptions ofthe utility industry, NSP-Minnesota, Xcel Energy or any of its othersubsidiaries; or security ratings;

·              Factors affectingutility operations such as unusual weather conditions; catastrophicweather-related damage; unscheduled generation outages, maintenance or repairs;unanticipated changes to fossil fuel, nuclear fuel or natural gas supply costsor availability due to higher demand, shortages, transportation problems orother developments; nuclear or environmental incidents; or electrictransmission or natural gas pipeline constraints;

·              Employee workforcefactors, including loss or retirement of key executives, collective bargainingagreements with union employees, or work stoppages;

·              Increasedcompetition in the utility industry;

·              State, federal andforeign legislative and regulatory initiatives that affect cost and investmentrecovery, have an impact on rate structures and affect the speed and degree towhich competition enters the electric and natural gas markets; industryrestructuring initiatives; transmission system operation and/or administrationinitiatives; recovery of investments made under traditional regulation; natureof competitors entering the industry; retail wheeling; a new pricing structure;and former customers entering the generation market;

·              Rate-settingpolicies or procedures of regulatory entities, including environmentalexternalities, which are values established by regulators assigningenvironmental costs to each method of electricity generation when evaluatinggeneration resource options;

·              Nuclear regulatorypolicies and procedures, including operating regulations and spent nuclear fuelstorage;

·              Social attitudesregarding the utility and power industries;

·              Cost and othereffects of legal and administrative proceedings, settlements, investigationsand claims;

·              Technologicaldevelopments that result in competitive disadvantages and create the potentialfor impairment of existing assets;

·              Significant slowdownin growth or decline in the U.S. economy, delay in growth or recovery of theU.S. economy or increased cost for insurance premiums, security and otheritems;

·              Risks associatedwith implementation of new technologies; and

·              Other business orinvestment considerations that may be disclosed from time to time inNSP-Minnesota’s SEC filings, including “Risk Factors” in Item 1A, or in otherpublicly disseminated written documents.

 

NSP-Minnesotaundertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-lookingstatements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.The foregoing review of factors should not be construed as exhaustive.

 

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