Petersburg residents won’t have to pay a surcharge on a particular week of power usage in June. Utility Director Steve Harbour shared the news at the Petersburg Borough Assembly meeting on July 6.
“Recognizing that all our customers are already squeezed pretty hard from every direction with the rising cost, we decided that we’re not gonna collect a diesel surcharge,” Harbour said. “Doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way.”
Petersburg’s electric utility rates, while some of the lowest in Alaska, are rising. The Assembly last month agreed to increase the rates to cover department expenses and inflation.
Petersburg buys much of its electricity from the regional hydropower supplier, Southeast Alaska Power Agency or SEAPA, which shuts down for several days each summer to do maintenance. Petersburg runs on diesel generators around the clock during that period, and the cost is spread across local power customers through a surcharge.
This year’s shutdown lasted nine days. Harbour said the surcharge amounts to roughly 1.4 cents per kilowatt hour, similar to last year’s, or $12-18 per customer.
“But this year, between the hydro and everybody’s conservation efforts, we think that we can make up that shortfall,” Harbour said.
He cited several combined factors that helped lower this year’s load demand, and the associated surcharge: Petersburg was warmer during the scheduled shutdown, the town’s pool was offline, and the community evidently made an effort to keep power use to a minimum.
“Customers did an excellent job of conserving electricity during the shutdown. And the operators at the plant, they ran the generators as tight as they could and ran them really efficient,” Harbour said.
He also noted that, while the numbers are preliminary, Petersburg’s own Blind Slough hydropower plant finished the year with a high output; the municipality sold 5.5% more power and bought about 3% less from SEAPA. Final numbers are expected at the end of the month.
Harbour said the move not to bill customers for the surcharge only applies this time, and isn’t guaranteed to happen again.
The Assembly later that meeting also approved a measure to authorize a $3.3 million revenue bond, already factored in recently approved utility rate increases, to help pay for a diesel generator project at Scow Bay. That ordinance will need to be approved by the Assembly one more time on July 20 before it can go on the ballot for voters to ratify.
