After double digit increases in monthly flat rate service fees from Arrowhead Electric Cooperative over the past few years, I was pleasantly surprised when I opened my bill this month to find this charge had not increased for 2011. It remains the same $42.00 per month as last year, although we are now paying the new 1% county sales tax on this amount.
But why are Arrowhead’s members charged this fee at all?
Arrowhead’s management and board believe that every co-op member…whether residential, commercial or seasonal…should pay the same monthly fee to access the power grid, regardless of the amount of electricity they purchase. Lights on or off…you currently pay $504 per year to connect to the power grid.
Our federal and state highway network operates on a different principle. It is primarily funded through fuel taxes and is based on your use of the system. The more you drive…the more fuel you purchase… the more tax you pay. Roadbeds and bridges are built to higher standards
because of the heavy loads carried by commercial traffic and with lower fuel economy of large vehicles commercial carriers pay more in fuel taxes, costs that are passed along to their customers. Imagine how much you would pay to drive if everyone was charged the same monthly fee to use the highway system regardless of the miles you drove each month!
Arrowhead Electric sold over 65 million kilowatt hours of power last year. An increased rate of one cent per kwh would raise revenues by $650,000 and could be used to reduce the monthly flat rate fee by about fourteen dollars. A one and a half cent increase could cut the current $42.00 fee in half. In 2006, before the recent monthly flat rate increases, AECI members were paying about one cent more per kwh than we paid in 2010.
No amount of energy conservation can reduce the monthly flat rate fee you pay, but charging for the actual cost to provide each kwh of power would encourage reductions in energy consumption by all users… without the contests, drawings and give-aways AECI has promoted in the past.
Bob LaMettry
Grand Marais
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