New rate class discussed at PUD meeting

EPHRATA — Qualifying existing customers would be phased into a new Grant County PUD “evolving industries” rate class over a period of three years, if commissioners follow the recommendation of PUD staff. A review of the options was part of the regular commission meeting Tuesday.

The proposed Class 17 grew out a flood of requests for service, dating back to summer 2017. Many were from people involved in cryptocurrency, which uses a still-evolving technology known as blockchain to process non-monetary transactions. It became a focus of study because the process uses a lot of electricity, and the customer requests added up to about 200 megawatts.

The proposed rates were announced in June. Cryptocurrency – which is the only business qualifying for Class 17 currently – can be a commercial operation or set up in a residential area. Under the current proposal, the basic electricity charge for new Class 17 customers in residential areas would be $1.04 per day, plus 13.7 cents per kilowatt hour.

For Class 17 customers that use more than 200KW per hour, the basic charge would be $1,000 per month and 7.09 cents per kilowatt hour. Those customers also would pay a demand charge, $6 per kilowatt during the billing period.

Some cryptocurrency business owners protested the new rates, saying it would hurt their businesses and maybe make it hard to stay in business in Grant County. In light of those concerns, commissioners asked the PUD staff to come up with options for existing customers.

The staff came back with the idea for a phased-in implementation.

The proposed fee schedule would implement the Class 17 rates for new customers, beginning April 1, when 2019 rates would be revised for all classes. Existing customers would be charged 15 percent of the difference between their current rate and the proposed rate in the first year, 35 percent of the difference in the second year, and 50 percent of the difference in the third year.

Customer requests for new or expanded service have been divided into two categories. Applications in the non-evolving-industry class will be processed before the evolving industry class. As a result applications from new evolving industry customers probably won’t be processed for a while, said PUD chief operating officer Dave Churchman. There are about 28 traditional industry customers in line, and it will take more than a year to process all those applications, Churchman said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.