Dollars and Sense: HCREC's 2024 Rate Adjustment

Dollars and Sense: What members need to know about Harrison County Rural Electric Cooperative’s Upcoming Rate Adjustment

By Tom Bothwell, Board President and Joe Farley, Chief Executive Officer

In today’s modern, connected world, having a source of safe, reliable, and affordable electricity is critical. Harrison County Rural Electric Cooperative (HCREC) makes it our mission to provide that to you, our member, every single day. We pride ourselves on not only providing competitively priced electricity, but also giving members proactive and necessary investments in our electric grid all while maintaining our financial ability to retire member patronage on a regular basis.

HCREC Board President, Tom Bothwell

As a not-for-profit cooperative, Harrison County REC is committed to providing safe and reliable power and will work diligently to minimize the impact of necessary price adjustments. While our rates have been stable since 2017, they are designed not to make a profit but, simply to cover our costs of safely and reliably providing power. This includes the price of purchasing power, but also to purchase equipment and tools for our team to safely perform their jobs and provide the excellent service and reliability that our members have grown to know and depend on. However, like many of our neighboring utilities, we are not immune to financial pressure from rising costs. For example, the cost for a distribution pad transformer (which is stored a large green metal box that sits on a cement pad) increased from $1,207 before the Covid-19 pandemic, to $1,605 in 2021 with another jump to $2,278 this year and wait times to receive this essential equipment can vary depending on availability.  

HCREC CEO, Joe Farley

It is due to these rising costs that we are informing you that the rates currently paid for our services will be changing this year as of your June billing statement that you will receive in July. The effects of the new rates will vary depending on usage, to help members determine this dollar amount, HCREC has created a chart below that further explains the changes for the primary rate classes as well as an explanation of the Power Cost Adjustment (PCA). The combined effect will amount to about a 6% increase collectively over our membership. This is the first change in your electric rate in seven years.

In addition to those actions that help us control your electric co-op’s costs, it’s important to note the many cost-effective, energy-efficiency programs and services that are available to help you control what you can by using electricity as efficiently as possible, which helps you exercise some control over the amount of your electricity bill. These programs include Switch Makes Cents load management, Budget Billing, Energy Efficiency Rebates, HCREC’s Community Solar, and HCREC energy audits.

As a member of this cooperative, your concerns are always our primary focus. Harrison County REC certainly appreciates your business and strives to be responsive to your need for reliable and affordable electric service. This new rate is grounded in these principles. For a more specific breakdown of the impact of the change on your bill, we would encourage you to please contact our office by calling 712.647.2727 or via email at HarrisonInfo@hcrec.coop. You can also visit our lobby during regular business hours Monday through Thursday from 7:30am to 4:00pm or on Friday from 7:30am to 11:30am.

As the use of energy rises, Harrison County REC plans to meet the demand of our members head on while still adhering to our mission of providing safe, reliable, and affordable power at the best possible value. We thank you for your continued membership and look forward to serving you.

Below are the board approved rate adjustments:

Customer Class	Current Monthly Rate	+ Increase	Monthly Rate	Class Percentage Increase
Multi-Purpose Single-Phase	$144.74	$12.77	$157.51	8.79%
Multi-Phase < 50kW	$217.38	$18.63	$236.01	7.38%
Multi-Phase > 50kW	$1,501.55	$91.62	$1,593.17	5.98%
Idle Service	$18.50	$1.50	$20.00	8.11%
Interruptible Controlled	$93.71	$5.82	$99.53	6.29%
Irrigation	$184.16	$10.86	$195.02	6.08%
Controlled Irrigation	$138.92	$2.84	$141.76	2.71%
Security Lights	$1.50	$.10	$1.60	6.67%
Generator Rate Specialty Load Control	$1,192.85	$24.33	$1,217.18	2.04%

Power Cost Adjustment Clause is a mechanism that passes through fluctuations in cost of purchased power to our electric billing on a current basis. 

A Power Cost Adjustment (PCA) charge is assessed to reflect changes in the Cooperative’s wholesale power.  The Board of Directors at its discretion may choose not to apply this charge.

If the Board of Directors chooses to apply this charge, the monthly charges for all rates except rates with direct billed power cost shall be increased or decreased on a uniform per kWh sold basis computed monthly as follows:

PCA = (A - B + C)

               kWhs

Where:

PCA = Power Cost Adjustment (expressed in $ per kWh) to be applied to estimated energy sales for the billing period.

A = Total estimated purchased electricity cost from all suppliers for the billing period but excluding direct billed power cost.

B = Total estimated purchased electricity cost from all suppliers including fuel which are included in the Cooperative's base rates.  The base power cost is computed as:

B = (D) (kWhs)

D = Base power cost in $ per kWh sold of $0.081025

kWhs = Total estimated energy sales for billing period excluding sales to customers with direct billed power cost.

C = Adjustment to be applied to the current monthly billing to account for differences in actual purchased electricity costs and actual PCA revenues recovered in previous periods.

The Base power cost has been reviewed, and no change is necessary.

In months where the actual cost of power is below this base cost of power, the PCA will create a credit on your billing.