La Plata Electric Association's challenge to 2013 rate increases for wholesale power is proceeding, co-op attorney Barry Spear reported at the LPEA annual member meeting on May 22 at the Fort Lewis College Concert Hall.
LPEA, Empire Electric from Montezuma County, another co-op, and some large user customers filed a complaint about the Tri-State rate increase with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission in Denver.
"Tri-State raised rates with little input from members," Spear said, meaning the local co-ops that distribute the power to their member customers.
The LPEA board filed a complaint with the PUC, he said, but Tri-State challenged PUC jurisdiction to hear the complaint. "They ruled that they do (have jurisdiction), and the case is proceeding."
Spear said he expects a hearing before an administrative law judge in late September or early October.
"What LPEA is asserting is that the wholesale rate is unlawful because it's preferential and discriminatory," Spear said. "They didn't take into account the time-of-use option. The Tri-State rate removes incentives for energy conservation and efficiency. It resulted in a 15 to 20 percent cost increase to high load customers in 2013, and a 30 percent increase to time-of-use customers."
Before 2013, those customers paid a lower rate than non-time-of-use customers for electric use during low-demand times, generally late evening to early morning, and paid a higher rate for use during high demand times.
With Tri-State's 2013 rate increases, LPEA had to pay the same amount per kilowatt hour no matter what time of day the customer used it.
Spear said the same arguments continue for Tri-State's 2014 rate increases.
Mike McInnes, Tri-State's new interim CEO, spoke right before Spear without reference to the rate challenge. He said around 23 percent of Tri-State's generation is from "non-carbon sources."
He asserted that one impact on rates is "regulatory over-reach, rules and regulations that drive up the cost. We aren't against all regulation, but it needs to make sense and be affordable."
Kay Schrater from the LPEA Round-up Foundation board urged more members to sign on to have their monthly bill rounded up to the next dollar, or more if the members wants. The money is distributed periodically to an assortment of area non-profit and community service groups. The list she showed included Bayfield Early Education Program, the Bayfield and Ignacio libraries, Bayfield Lions Club, and Pine River Youth Baseball.
The Round-up program started in 1997 and since then has collected more than $1.1 million from the bill round-ups that cost an average $6 per year to a customer.
Schrater urged more members to sign up. Around one-third of members do the round-up. "Lately we've been asked for more money than we have to give out," she said, with requests totalling around $15,000 for around $5,000 available to give out.
LPEA CEO Greg Munro, who started in the position in 2002 and is retiring this summer, choked up during his speech and received a standing ovation from members.
Featured guest speaker was author Ted Case, who has spent many years as a lobbyist for electric co-ops. He cited items from his book Power Plays on the history of electric coops.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt opened the way for rural electric co-ops when he signed an executive order to create the Rural Electrification Administration on May 11, 1935, Case said. At that time only 10 percent of farm households had electric. When FDR died in 1945, about half of farms had electric.
Locals got together in 1939 to start LPEA, he said.
The main item at the annual meeting was the election for LPEA board seats. Most votes were mailed in, but some people voted at the meeting.
Out of 23,092 ballots mailed to members, 5,801 votes were cast, according to a news release from LPEA.
Incumbents Jeff Berman and Joe Wheeling both kept their seats in races that had drawn heated public comments in letters to the editor over the past several weeks.
Berman received 1,070 votes in District 3 (city of Durango) to beat challenger Bill Waters, who got 988 votes.
Wheeling beat challenger Alison Dance in District 4 (north and east part of the county) by a vote of 1,170 to 806.
In Archuleta County, challenger Bob Lynch unseated incumbent Ken Fox with a tiny vote margin of 893 for Lynch to 874 for Fox.
Board president Davin Montoya was re-elected without opposition in La Plata County District 2, which covers the area south of Highway 160 and the southwest part of the county.
As the meeting concluded, Montoya noted the huge diversity of LPEA's membership. "Some of our members can't pay a full electric bill at one time. They have to pay over the month. We have members on fixed incomes and members with trophy homes," he said. "The board has to be sensitive to all the members. They have a tough job trying to balance our obligations to everyone."
