The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Co-op board postponed the increase
until after winter
Your Gunnison County Electric Association (GCEA) electric bill will be going up starting May 1, but not by much. The electric co-op is raising rates to bring in an additional 2 percent of revenue per year. About half of that is meant to offset an increase in wholesale power costs from Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association. The other half is earmarked for GCEA operating costs and system improvements.
The biggest change a residential customer will notice is probably in the service availability charge. Currently, residents pay $25 a month. That will go up to $27 a month starting in May. The same household will see a rise in the energy charge, from .11851 cents per kilowatt hour to .11868 cents. The GCEA estimates that an average household will use about 700 kilowatt hours of electricity per month. So the energy charge in such a situation will go from approximately $82.95 a month to $83.07, a difference of about 12 cents.
The commercial service availability fee will also increase $2 per month from $27.50 to $29.50.
“The overall goal was to increase the costs to bring in an additional 2 percent,” explained Vicki Spencer, GCEA manager of external affairs. “That is meant to essentially recover our increased costs. We tried to distribute the costs over the various classes from residential to commercial to large power users. We have tried to distribute the increase equitably.”
Spencer said the costs to the GCEA took effect January 1 but the board wanted to hold off on the rate increase until the spring, when customer bills were typically lower. Most electric bills spike in the winter. “We deliberately deferred the increase until spring,” Spencer said. “We didn’t want to impose an increase on the members in the middle of the winter. May is usually when the bills start going down.”
Board president Chris Morgan said that GCEA is a nonprofit rural electric cooperative owned by its members that doesn’t raise rates to generate profits. “Instead, we only raise rates as needed to cover the costs of purchasing and distributing electric energy and services to members,” he said.
The GCEA will hold a public information meeting on the rate increase at their Gunnison headquarters on Friday, April 11 at 6 p.m.
