[env-trinity] TPUD restarts drought charge, ups high-use ‘residential’ bills

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/local/article_155d5636-42ac-11e8-a83f-b38617265a4e.html

TPUD restarts drought charge, ups high-use ‘residential’ bills
   
   - By AMY GITTELSOHN The Trinity Journal
 - Apr 18, 2018
    
The Trinity Public Utilities District took action last week to restart its drought surcharge and to charge extremely high use residential customers its higher commercial rate.After a one-year reprieve, Trinity Public Utilities District customers will soon see the Drought Relief Surcharge back on their electric bills. The surcharge of 1.3 cents per kWh will show up on the bills received in May.This follows a water forecast from the state Department of Water Resources for the state of 70 percent of average.“January and February were terrible,” TPUD General Manager Paul Hauser said.The surcharge originally was designed to kick in when the state experienced two below average water years in a row and to suspend when the state had two above average water years in a row. However, with last year’s bumper rain and snowfall that followed years of drought, the board took it off early.Now, the drought surcharge is back. At its April 12 meeting, the board voted to amend the rate schedule so that the surcharge comes on or off each year depending on the DWR’s April forecast.“We’re always struggling with what’s the best way to deal with the volatility in the cost of power,” Hauser said.Waiting two years to put the charge on or take it off aligned with the TPUD’s costs because there is a lag time between high or low precipitation, resultant federal hydropower generation and the bills to TPUD reflecting that generation, Hauser noted.“The difficulty with that is it’s not in alignment with folks’ perceptions,” he said.Board President Clarence Rose likened the change to being more like a gas station where the truck puts a load in the tank and the price changes.There was some discussion of changing the name of the surcharge, since power generation, which affects the district’s costs, is affected not just by rain and snowfall but also by river restoration decisions.However, the board kept the name as is for now, and voted unanimously to approve the amendments to the surcharge.Also at their April 12 meeting, TPUD directors voted to charge residential customers using more than 9,999 kWh per month the district’s higher commercial rate. Currently, the district has approximately 30 residential customers that exceed that amount.One residence actually uses more than 50,000 kWh in a month, Hauser noted, adding that this exceeds usage by Weaverville Elementary School.The average residential customer uses less than 1,000 kWh per month.“It’s just not realistic for residential users to use that much electricity,” Hauser said, adding he doesn’t know what the activity is, but it is “clearly commercial.”These are “huge amounts of usage on residential parcels that were never meant for that kind of usage,” he said.As a result of this high use, distribution transformers for some of these customers have melted or had to be replaced. The loads they use can’t be met with a 200-amp service, and services of over 400-amps aren’t provided to residential customers. Larger services are provided with commercial zoning if the customer pays for the upgrade, which can be very expensive depending distance from the substation.The change is expected to bring in approximately $100,000 annually. Director Rose noted that this sounds like a way to offset the costs.The board voted unanimously to charge the high-use residential customers exceeding 9,999 kWh the commercial rate. In Weaverville and Hayfork, for example, the residential rate is 5.545 cents per kWh and the commercial rate is a couple of cents higher at 7.258 cents. Other areas pay higher rates, but the difference between commercial and residential is still approximately 2 cents.   
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