Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Electric rates going up

Prescott residents may as well start preparing for increases in their electric bill.

Larry Stockton, Prescott city manager, told the Prescott City Council, at its March meeting, the citys contract with Entergy will be running out at midnight Dec. 31, 2005, and the city will have to have a new provider for its electricity.

The city, he said, sent out requests for proposals (RFPs), expecting to get maybe a dozen responses. Stockton said they received 23. This list has been narrowed down to the two lowest bidders, both reputable companies.

The problem, he said, is the lowest bidder is still 25 percent higher than the current rate. Which means the cost of electricity locally will be going up.

There could be a problem, he told the council, in getting switched over exactly on time. To thwart this, Stockton has talked to Entergy, the citys current provider, about buying gap power. But, he said, this would cost more than the contract rate the city is currently paying.

Prescott purchases 100 percent of its electric load and has no generating capacity whatsoever. Stockton said it would be in the citys best interest to purchase stock in a generating facility, should one be built.

The council was to have met in special session Thursday, March 24, to pick one of the two providers, but the meeting was cancelled.

This is one of the most important things the citys done in some time, he said. We dont know what the contract price will be, but it will be tied to long term (natural) gas prices.

Its a complicated issue, Prescott Mayor Howard Taylor said. We have to take action on this issue.

Stockton said there are more factors involved than just price, though cost is a major part.

There will be things we dont like, he said, but all in all I think well have a good contract. In the future we may need to install our own sub station. The new contract will be for five years..

Prescott is considered a small customer as the city purchases between 21-22 megawatts of electricity.