New Cost of Service Study and Rate Design
Preparing and planning for the future is one of the many things we do to meet our mission of providing you with safe, reliable and affordable power. This edition of Highline Headlines has several examples of how we are preparing for the future.
Each year the Board of Directors and the management team of the Cooperative meet to plan for the future of the Cooperative. This year, we discussed issues including the impact of increases in our wholesale power cost due to our obligation to meet new clean air requirements and a new power plant to meet our growth. We had a three percent increase from our power supplier on January 1 of this year. We are anticipating another eight percent increase in April of 2006 and another eight percent in April of 2008.
With the help of Ms. Mary Garrison from Stanley Consultants, we reviewed a Cost of Service and Rate Design Study. A cost of service study determines how much it costs to service different classes of members. We currently classify by the type of service you receive. Single phase service is one class; three phase service is divided into several different classes based on the size of the load. Rate Design determines the rate for each class necessary to generate the revenue needed to provide service to each class. At this time, we are planning to interview several different consultants to assist us in conducting a cost of service study.