House bill would increase energy levelizer by $33 million
“Energy is a quality of life issue,” said Jodi Mitchell, CEO and GM of the Inside Passage Electric Cooperative. “[IPEC Customers] really do have to juggle whether they’re able to buy food or pay their bills.”
Energy rates vary throughout Southeast Alaska from community to community along the close-knit, but geologically isolated Archipelago. Electricity prices jump from nine cents per kWh to 60 cents per kWh in some areas.
Mitchell said that for her customers, despite the high cost of energy, power cost equalization displaces less than 20 percent of most household electrical costs.
A bill introduced this year by Rep. Bryce Edgmon R-Dillingham, House Bill 294 (bit.ly/wHNSlw), would increase the monthly amount of electricity eligible for rebate by the program from 500 kilowatts to 700kw.
The increased operation expenditures is estimated to cost the state $33 million per year out to FY18, according to the bill’s fiscal note, prepared by the Alaska Energy Authority.
In testimony before the House Special Committee on Energy, Mitchell strongly encouraged committee member support.
She compared the dozen or so lights overhead in the Capitol Building’s well-lit Butrovich Room 124 to the one or two bulbs in many rural homes.
She said she hopes the bill, if passed, would help stem the out-migration of Southeast’s population.
Henrich Kadake, Mayor of Kake, said he supported the bill “whole-heartedly.”
He said he believes easing the cost of power in his community will reverse a decade-long out-migration that has seen the community’s population drop from 900 to 510.
He says the community tries to create jobs but energy costs take all the resources.
Many of Kake’s residents are on fixed incomes, he said. “Retired, teachers … there are only a few jobs in Kake,” Kadake said. “We can not afford to keep our houses warm.”
The final status of the bill was not known at press time. For more information visit bit.ly/wHNSlw.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (12)
Add commentGeologically isolated?
Is this an argument for or against increased school funding?
Not that simple
Somehow I find it difficult to believe that increasing PCE for Kake will substantially reverse the population decline. If PCE also applied to business, then that might accomplish something.
Isn't Kake getting an intertie to Petersburg?
Lets all move to Juneau
It's easy to sit in your cozy glacier home and pay your cozy hydro rates. It was a southeast wide vote to use the money to build your damn dam with the promise that it would intertie with outlying communities. Once again we see what happens with a promise and a handshake. The average electrical bill in Juneau of 110 dollars cost 733 dollars. Put that in your pipe smoke it. Here in hoonah kids don't get allowances. They get an extra five minutes in the shower. It would be nice to walk down a hall and not have to turn lights of and on as you go. Or stress out that you left the bathroom fan on. But go ahead and crack your jokes. Your sarcasm won't make or break us. We lost our sense of humor a long time ago.
Energy costs
I agree with latitude58, pass the pce on to the business, and
raise the amount of KWH covered by the pce. The KWH rate
here before pce kicks in is 64 cents with an 11 cent fuel
surcharge. You do the math.
Build interties and connect SE communities with low cost hydro
and PCE payments will not be needed in the future.
Too easy of a solution.
Live where you can afford to
Live where you can afford to live - I guess some people never got the memo.
Relocate a few hundred full
Relocate a few hundred full time and part time state jobs to rural areas. This would bring in revenue and jobs
ARTCLE
We need to have a SE intertie for electricity.Stevens thought of this years ago and set up a trust fund for it. No one knowns what happened to the $$$$.
PCE sucks
When will we realize that "Power Cost Equalization" or PCE makes little sense for the long term? When will IPEC disband to the benefit of each suffering community which is mostly being suppressed by IPEC?
When will we realize that we are in the midst of good opportunity with the acceptance of geothermal energy through out the country and conclude that now is the time build such a generation system that we have and will always have for some communities?
Why do we always have to talk about it for years before we do anything about it?
It is sickening to me that there is a pounding on the table to give tax relief to the oil industry and then we talk about the gas line for years and years and it never makes it to first base?
Where are the Wally Hickels for today? Anybody?
Bill Wielechowski, will it be you? Lesil?
Come on. We're not talking about light bulbs, we are talking about a THRIVING ECONOMY!!!
Please somebody lets do something meaningful.
PCE sucks
When will we realize that "Power Cost Equalization" or PCE makes little sense for the long term? When will IPEC disband to the benefit of each suffering community which is mostly being suppressed by IPEC?
When will we realize that we are in the midst of good opportunity with the acceptance of geothermal energy through out the country and conclude that now is the time build such a generation system that we have and will always have for some communities?
Why do we always have to talk about it for years before we do anything about it?
It is sickening to me that there is a pounding on the table to give tax relief to the oil industry and then we talk about the gas line for years and years and it never makes it to first base?
Where are the Wally Hickels for today? Anybody?
Bill Wielechowski, will it be you? Lesil?
Come on. We're not talking about light bulbs, we are talking about a THRIVING ECONOMY!!!
Please somebody lets do something meaningful.