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Show Currently Speaking?! 7 Moon Lake Elec. Asso. Inc. CAUSES OF UPWARD TREND OF ELEC TRIC RATES The primary causes of electric rate increases are inflation, growth, and regulations. When Moon Lake Electric raises rates, it is quite natural for consumers to get upset especially since they don't have the option of "shopping elsewhere." We understand this and we're asking you to consider some facts so that you'll understand our position. First, Moon Lake Electric is a cooperative. Our rates are set to cover our costs and nothing more. We serve comparatively few consumers per mile of line which makes our plant investment in-vestment per consumer higher than other tVDes of electric utilities. In spite of this, we have been able to offer rates which are lower than those of surrounding surroun-ding utilities and we are proud of this accomplishment. For many years Moon Lake was able to meet the needs of its consumers from an inexpensive source of power generated by federally-operated hydro plants along the Colorado River. These were administered orginally by the Bureau of Reclamation and now by Western Area Power Administration (WAPA). As the Uintah Basin, and Moon Lake Electric, experienced growth, Moon Lake's allocation of power from WAPA was no longer sufficient to meet the Association's requirements. In searching for power to supplement the WAPA allocation, it was found that entering into a contract with Utah Power & Light (UP&L.) was the most economical action to take The blended rates from these two power sources still resulted in favorable rates for Moon Lake's consumers. However, over the years retail rates had to raise to meet increases in wholesale power by UP&L. Iast year, an order by the Utah Public Service Commission resulted in our contract with UP&L being cancelled. can-celled. In its place, a portion of UP&L's new Hunter II Plant was sold to us through Deseret Generation and Transmission Cooperative. a generation cooperative formed for the purpose of supplying power to distribution cooperatives such as Moon Lake. This move resulted in an increase in our wholesale rates and shortly thereafter WAPA raised their rates. Neither of these increases could be absorbed by the Association and they had to be passed on to the consumers. One reason that our wholesale rates, and therefore your rate, have gone up is that it takes about eight times as much money and more than twice as many years to complete a generating plant than it did a few years ago. An ever-increasing ever-increasing portion of your electric bill goes to pay for pollution controls and regulatory demands and their related delays. The price of poles, cable, equipment, labor, insurance, interest and everything Moon I'ike needs and used has gone up, just as it has for everyone else. All of these facts don't make it any easier to accept the high bills you are getting, but hopefully they will help you to understand the reasons which, as first stated, boil down to inflation, growth, and regulations. We have almost all benefitted from the growth, and as to the inflation and excessive regulation, the only hope we have is to make every possible effort to convince our legislators these items need to lie controlled' and then to accept the necessary sacrifices we must all make to control them. |
