PUD report

The Wahkiakum County PUD commissioners met on Tuesday, March 18, and approved Shelby J. Garrett’s appointment as the new director of finance. Erin Wilson, the current director of finance, will retire at the end of April after 21 years with the Wahkiakum PUD. The Puget Island Well Project is running on schedule, and test results for water quality are expected to be ready by the next meeting on April 1.

Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which provides power to Wahkiakum PUD and a third of the Northwest, recently announced it intends to move to the Southwest Power Pool’s Markets+ system and leave California’s Extended Day-Ahead Market. During times when the BPA grid doesn’t have enough power (extreme heat or cold), excess power must be purchased from other entities. This merger into the Southwest market means BPA will buy that excess power from different sources and in a new structure. “The way it would affect ratepayers here is [BPA] getting the lowest possible price on the power that has to be bought outside of the BPA system,” said Commissioner Dennis Reid. Commissioner Eugene Healy believes this change makes sense on a practical level. The California Legislature runs the California market in part, where a board controls the Southwest Power Pool.

Energy markets are complex and the jargon is involved and if one doesn’t work in the field it can be a daunting topic to comprehend, but the PUD commissioners don’t expect there to be any substantial rate changes due to BPA’s market change. “Bonneville raises our rates from time to time,” said Reid. “There was a rate increase this year. We’ve been able to absorb that, and we have not had a rate increase in eight years… we’re working our end so that affects our customer-owners as little as possible when these rate [increases] happen.”

Ending the meeting, Commissioner Robert Jungers said, “We have the lowest retail rate, I believe, in the state of Washington, excepting those PUDs that own [their own] hydro assets.”