Grant PUD sets community meetings on rate policy
Grant County PUD commissioners want to hear from customers on their ideas for rate-setting policy. A PUD substation is pictured. In recent months, the PUD’s board has faced a sometimes heated debate on how rates should be set.
FILE PHOTO
EPHRATA — Grant County PUD commissioners and staff will be soliciting the opinion of PUD customers on the future of its rate structure in a series of public meetings beginning next week.
Commissioners will be talking to different classes of customers at different times throughout April and May. A meeting with ag customers is up first, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. April 16 in the commission hearing room at PUD headquarters, 30 C St. SW in Ephrata. The meeting with small- and medium-size business customers is also April 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center auditorium, 401 S. Balsam St.
Residential customers are invited to a discussion from 6 to 8 p.m. May 21 at the Civic Center Auditorium in Moses Lake.
All customers will be invited when PUD officials present the conclusions from the meetings. That discussion is set for 6-8 p.m. June 4 at the Civic Center auditorium.
Demand for PUD power is increasing, according to a PUD press release, and commissioners want to find out what customers think are workable solutions to meet current and future needs.
The meetings will include a presentation on the current model used in setting rates, called cost of service. That method starts by analyzing what it costs to provide electrical services to the different customer classes.
Participants at the meetings will be encouraged to talk about other factors they think should be included in the rate analysis, the press release said.
Once the cost of service has been established, some classes are charged less than the cost of providing service to them, while others are charged more than the cost of service. Irrigators and residential customers are charged less than the cost of service, while large industrial customers are charged more.
In some cases, customer classes are charged well below the cost of service, while others are charged a lot more. Commissioners established a policy about eight years ago designed to bring those costs within specific guidelines with the goal of reaching them by 2024. But the effort failed, and commissioners have been discussing alternate ways of setting rates for the past six months.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.