Grant PUD revenue below budget projections

EPHRATA — Grant County PUD revenue for the first half of 2018 was below budget forecasts in five of the nine major rate classes. The only class to exceed the budget target by more than six percent is Class 7, large general service. Typically cryptocurrency operations have been allocated to Class 7.

Jeremy Nolan, PUD financial analyst, reviewed the data at the regular commission meeting Tuesday. “Most of the classes came in less than budget.”

For the year to date the PUD is 2.3 percent below its budget projection, about $2.23 million.

Class 7, however, exceeded its budget target by 64.8 percent for the first half of 2018, generating $6,690,318 in revenue. “The budget was put together last fall, based on a load forecast from November 2016,” and an overall retail rate increase of 2 percent, Nolan said. In the baseline picked for the budget, “there was very minimal load from the cryptocurrency miners and that has grown quite a bit.”

Most cryptocurrency miners that come to Grant County are larger than the typical Class 7 customer. “It (revenue) is up – a lot -but it’s in line with expectations.”

In answer to a question from commissioner Dale Walker, Nolan said cryptocurrency operations have about 30 megawatts of power installed, and are using about 22 megawatts of that currently.

Retail customers generated $24,123,927, about 3.8 percent below the budget projection. Residential revenue was above the budget target in the first quarter. Commercial customers (Class 2), generated $12,764,414, about 3.1 percent below budget. Class 14 industrial revenue was $6,85,673, about 10.2 percent below budget.

Large industrial, Class 15, brought in $31,935,369, which was 3.1 percent above the half-year target. But Class 15 revenue was 4.3 percent below the budget target in the second quarter.

Chief executive officer Kevin Nordt said the actual number of customers doesn’t seem to be changing much. “That is the bulk of what we’re seeing, is the weather sensitivity,” Nolan said.

The weather was warmer than expected in the second quarter, Nolan said – high temperatures were close to historic norms but lows were warmer than normal, so residential customers weren’t heating as much.

Irrigation revenue was 25.9 percent below the half-year target. Nolan said both April and May were rainier than normal, but June was drier than normal.

Most of the electricity use in Class 14 (industrial) is from five customers, Nolan said, Three of the data centers in that class either had less business than expected, or in one case, lost some business. Of the Class 15 customers, three manufacturing operations used more electricity than projected and one data center used less, and the two essentially canceled each other out, Nolan said.

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