If the power outages were not bad enough, Northern New Mexico electric cooperative customers will see their rates increase by 4.1 percent in 2009, according to officials at all three of the cooperatives that serve Rio Arriba County.
“This rate increase will show up in customers’ March bills,” Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative Financial Director Ernesto Gonzales said. “The rates from Tri-State are going up 4.1 percent on average, but that will vary between the member co-ops, depending on their load demands.
Jemez and the Northern Rio Arriba Electric Cooperative (NORA) both said their increases will match Tri-State’s increase.
“Our customers should see an increase of 4.1 percent in the February bill,” NORA Executive Vice
President Benjamin Leyba said.
Kit Carson Electric Cooperative spokesman Martin Martinez confirmed that Kit Carson customers should also expect an increase, but he would not say how high it would be.
Tri-State increased rates by 11.4 percent in 2008, 11.8 percent in 2007, 4 percent in 2006 and 13.8 percent in 2005, according to a SUN report.
“All of the rate increases Co-op customers have seen have been because of Tri-State’s rate increases,” Gonzales said. “It’s primarily fuel and fuel transportation costs,” Gonzales explained.
The most recent Tri-State quarterly financial report cites increased fuel costs. But it also notes increased expenditures for “scheduled and unscheduled major maintenance outages” in 2008.
When Tri-State merged with Plains Generation in August 2000, co-op customers in Northern New Mexico were told to expect big rate cuts. But incremental rate increases since 2002 have erased those benefits of the merger, Gonzales said.
“Our rates did go down by 25 percent,” he noted. “But with this coming rate increase, we are about back to even with where we started in 2000.”