Grant PUD examining rate structure changes again
The demand for power from customers like Group14, whose facility is under construction near Moses Lake, is prompting the Grant County Public Utility District to review, and possibly revise, its rate structure.
FILE PHOTO
Key points:
“Core customers” will be first in line for lowest-cost electricity
Industrial customers eligible for any lowest-cost power core customers aren’t using.
All customers will see rate increases as costs rise.
EPHRATA — A new rate structure might be coming to Grant County Public Utility District customers in 2026, and customers will be able to tell PUD commissioners what they think about it beginning in September. Commissioner Tom Flint said electrical rates will be on an upward trajectory, given substantial increases in demand and increased costs to produce electricity.
“It’ll be competitive. But it will be increasing over time,” Flint said at the July 22 commission meeting.
Commissioner Larry Schaapman said Monday the new rate structure would be designed to provide the best information possible on the actual costs of providing services.
“We’ll be able to get dialed in on actual cost per customer class,” he said.
The analysis will provide what Schaapman called a “more transparent” look at costs.
The PUD owns most, but not all, of the power generated at Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams and can charge lower rates as a result. What are called core customers – residential users, irrigators, agriculture processors and small businesses – are the first in line to take advantage of those savings.
Christine Pratt, PUD public information officer, said Monday that won’t change.
“Core customers will be billed based on the lowest-cost power we deliver,” Pratt wrote in answer to an email from the Columbia Basin Herald. “For now, at least, the lowest-cost power is what we generate and deliver from the dams.”
Core customers don’t use all the PUD’s share of that power, so what’s left is used by industrial customers, and that won’t change either, she said.
“The industrial (customers) will get whatever lowest-cost power is left after core customers are served, so the industrials will continue to benefit from that too, until the core customer group grows through it,” she said. “We don’t have a solid estimate yet of when that could be.”
When power demand outgrows the PUD’s share of the output of the two dams, Pratt said, the customers asking for the extra power will be required to pay for it.
“Any power we need to acquire or develop will be higher-cost. The industrials will be billed based on those higher costs, since they’re the ones that are driving most of the load growth,” Pratt said.
Commissioners approved a new rate-setting policy July 22. It replaces one passed in January.
Rates will be reassessed every two years, according to the revised policy, and it also establishes guidelines for minimum and maximum increases. Rates will be based on the PUD’s estimate of adequate income, and the minimum and maximum are based on that.
If it’s approved, the revised rate-setting process would be designed to provide more information on future rates to industrial customers and an effort to avoid substantial increases, known as rate shock.
The plan would include changes to bills sent to PUD customers to better explain how rates are calculated, and efforts to work with large industrial customers to get better projections on their future power needs.
More details will be made available in August, including an information table at the Grant County Fair. A comment period opens Sept. 16 to get customer opinion on the proposal, with a public meeting to take comment during the Oct. 14 commission meeting.
Utility district employees have been analyzing rate trends and will share their conclusions with commissioners in September, including a look at how rates may change in the next few years.
Be heard, stay informed:
Comment period on new PUD rate structure begins Sept. 16
Public meeting to discuss proposed changes Oct. 14
Results presented to commission Nov. 12.