Central Lincoln PUD customers will see increase in July electricity bills

Residential electricity rates in Lincoln County went up 3 percent and a service charge increased by 9 percent a month effective July 1.

After no increase last year, the Central Lincoln Peoples Utility District board voted in June to raise rates for fiscal 2019-20. The last increase – 4 percent – came in 2017.

Commercial rates increased about the same percentage.

“The cost of materials and equipment keeps going up, and reluctantly we felt this increase was necessary,” said board chair Keith Tymchuk of Reedsport said in a news release.

Power used after July 1 will cost Central Lincoln’s residential customers 7.74 cents per kilowatt hour, up from 7.62 cents the past two years. The average residential customer uses 1,061 kilowatt hours a month, the utility said, meaning an average monthly increase of $1.28 in electric costs.

In addition, the utility’s “service availability charge (previously called the “basic” or “facilities” charge) will increase by $2 a month to $24, an increase of 9 percent.

The new rate for small businesses is 7.8 cents per kilowatt hour with a monthly service charge of $29.48.

The charge helps cover the cost of providing infrastructure such as lines, transformers, utility poles and substations to customers’ locations, the utility said. The board said the increase better reflects the costs of providing that infrastructure.

The publicly-owned utility district has 33,000 residential and 5,625 commercial and industrial customers along the Oregon coast in Lincoln, Lane, Douglas and Coos counties. In 2018 it had a net operating revenue of $4.2 million on revenue of $92.7 million and expenses of $88.5 million.