Port of ML considering power options following PUD vote

MOSES LAKE — Industrial electricity users in and around Moses Lake are going to consider their options following the election earlier this month of two new Grant County Public Utility District commissioners who favor higher industrial power rates.

“We’re going to reconvene the industrial council on Nov. 20, discuss this development, look at our options and the way forward,” Executive Director Jeffrey Bishop told commissioners.

Port commissioners were discussing the matter following the election last week Judy Wilson and Nelson Cox to the PUD commission. Both Wilson and Cox ran on a platform of lowering residential and agricultural rates and increasing the rates that industrial electricity users pay.

A number of companies, from high-tech manufacturers like SGL Automotive and REC Silicon to data center operators like Microsoft, have located to Grant County to take advantage of the county’s plentiful and relatively inexpensive power.

Among the options Bishop outlined to commissioners was the creation of an Industrial Development District (IDD), which could include part or all of the port district (which covers all of Moses Lake, and parts of the county north to Road 12 and south to Potholes Reservoir), and would allow the port to, among other things, become its own utility provider, giving industrial customers in Moses Lake an alternative to the PUD.

Bishop said the industrial development district could then buy power from someone other than the PUD, such as the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which operates Bonneville Dam and has over 15,000 miles of transmission lines in the Pacific Northwest, from the Canadian border to as far south as California and as far east as Montana.

The BPA has a high-voltage transmission line that runs just west of Moses Lake, and a substation along I-90 about halfway between Moses Lake and George.

“It would allow for deals with the BPA and take power from them directly,” Bishop told commissioners. “We have a responsibility to our customers who have expressed a desire to expand.”

The PUD’s rate structure, which charges residential and agricultural customers less than the cost of production and delivery of electricity, charges industrial customers more than the cost of production and delivery.

If enough industrial customers seek an alternative, it could upend the PUD’s entire rate structure.

Another option Bishop outlined to the commissioners was the possible creation of another public utility district, though that would take time and a lot of complex negotiations.

“We have a plethora of options in this area,” Bishop said. “We’ll look to the industrial community and get direction, see what they want to do.”

Whatever the port decides, Bishop and the commissioners intend to keep talking with the PUD commission and the newly elected commissioners.

“We need to meet with existing and PUD commissioners before we go too far down this road,” said commission President David “Kent” Jones. “We need to be care that it doesn’t appear we’re trying to counteract problems that don’t exist.”

Bishop said industrial power users are likely going to pay more attention to and get more active in PUD commission meetings.

“They’ve not done that in an organized manner,” Bishop said.