News
5/10/2010
BPA Hints at Rate Increase
Baker City, OR – May 10 – Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative (OTEC) members may be facing a Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) wholesale rate increase during the next fiscal year, in part due to low water and snowpack this year.
“BPA confirmed on May 7th what we had been expecting,” explains Werner Buehler, OTEC General Manager. “The low snowpack levels this year have added to a situation where BPA will finish this fiscal year with negative revenues. As a result, BPA will feel pressure to increase revenues through wholesale rate increases in the next fiscal year.”
How large the wholesale rate increase might be is yet to be determined. “There have been indications it could be a double digit increase,” suggests Buehler.
“OTEC is committed to keeping its members in the loop from the earliest point possible,” says Buehler. “We were transparent with the last BPA wholesale rate increase, and we will be so with this one.”
A new BPA wholesale rate increase would take effect in October 2011, the beginning of their next fiscal period.
Read BPA’s May 7, 2010, press release, “Spring Snow Too Little, Too Late: BPA Warns Electricity Rates Could Rise” at: http://www.bpa.gov/corporate/BPAnews/nreleases.cfm
