Quick Fact – OPALCO Rates
Balancing Cost, Benefit, and Fairness
As a non-profit co-op, OPALCO keeps rates as low as possible by controlling expenses and pricing electricity at the residential and commercial cost of service.
Though there is no perfect rate system, OPALCO combines the service access and energy charges with low-income energy assistance, energy efficiency, and renewable generation programs to ensure the combination is as fair as possible for all co-op members.
- Households who struggle to pay their bills are served by several energy assistance programs designed to keep power more affordable.
- OPALCO’s industry-leading energy efficiency and low interest Switch It Up programs help members reduce their energy consumption, and shift from more expensive climate-polluting fossil-fueled sources.
- When homes consume above-average energy, they pay higher energy charges – 14% to 31%, and a higher service access for oversized service – 15% to 30%.
Mainland Versus Island Bills – Balancing Equitability
Here in the islands, the annual electric cost is comparable to the mainland and less than similar-sized peer and US average co-ops. The key difference with our higher service access charge is who benefits.
A higher service access charge and lower energy charge more closely represents actual co-op costs and spreads the member bills more evenly across the whole year, softening the impact of winter bills.- It also ensures seasonal members pay their fair share of the grid even though they typically set their thermostats much lower in winter, when OPALCO recovers most of its needed revenue.
- OPALCO’s renewable energy rate for rooftop solar energy producers offers full value for the energy members use in their homes. Any energy they sell back to the grid is credited at about double the wholesale energy rate (a subsidy paid for by the whole membership, including households that can’t afford rooftop solar or other home energy systems). OPALCO is balancing the dual goal of encouraging local solar energy while keeping the cost as equitable as possible for all co-op members.
Mainland Versus Island Grid Cost
Though OPALCO member annual energy bills are comparable to the mainland, the cost of the grid serving 20 islands is much more expensive. A higher service access charge more closely represents actual co-op costs.
- To serve a San Juan County population on the mainland would simply require one substation and overhead lines. In our 20-island community, OPALCO requires 11 substations, 25 miles of submarine cables, and over 1,000 miles of mostly underground, storm-hardened distribution. Undergrounding in “the rock” costs 4X more than overhead lines. Submarine cables cost around 200X more.
- OPALCO holds public rate workshops and conducts an independent Cost of Service analysis every few years to ensure the range of residential and commercial co-op members pay their fair share. OPALCO’s 2025 Cost of Service study showed that a higher service access charge will more fairly allocate costs throughout the membership and improve stability in revenue requirements for the co-op.
- The Board anticipates rate increases of 4-6% for the foreseeable future, based on power, grid, and operation costs. The Board is looking at ways to increase co-op investments in local renewable energy microgrids to reduce our dependence on the mainland, which is experiencing rapidly increasing electric rates and supply-demand shortfalls.
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