Sharing services helps cooperative control costs

March 30, 2012

This is the third and final article in a series addressing the reasons why residential electric rates have risen 43 percent in the past 10 years.

This is the third and final article in a series addressing the reasons why residential electric rates have risen 43 percent in the past 10 years.

The cooperative's 2011 member satisfaction survey results show members were becoming increasingly aware of rising costs. We thought it would be helpful to review the reasons costs have increased over the past decade.

In the first article, we looked at our 10-year rate history, the structure of the bill and the Time of Day rates.

Last month, we reviewed why wholesale power costs have risen over the past decade, specifically looking at the environmental investments at our coal facilities and recent generation acquisitions to meet our power needs for the next decade-plus. This month the focus is on maintaining the local distribution system, growth in our service area and what we are doing to control costs so that we can continue to deliver affordable power in a financially responsible manner.

Continued...