Grant PUD Commissioners unanimously approved new electric rates for all customers during their business meeting on Jan. 27. The new rates take effect on April 1.
The rates are designed to keep Grant PUD financially healthy in the face of general inflationary pressures for all customers and allocate the costs of new power generation to large power-using customers. This “unbundling” rate strategy is something that the commissioners directed Grant PUD staff to develop after receiving input from customers during a two-year rate policy dialogue.
Core customers -- residential, commercial, and small commercial/general service – will receive an average increase of 3.5% in 2026. The increase is primarily needed to address significant cost increases for power grid components, including poles, wire, transformers, and other equipment. The cost of these materials has doubled this decade. Prices are expected to continue to increase in the coming years.
Large power-using customers in the Tier 1 and Tier 2 categories will see their rates increase by a 9.5% average on April 1. Along with paying for the same inflationary pressures that are being allocated to core customers, Tier 1 and Tier 2 customers will also be assessed an additional charge for blending in new power generation – solar, wind, and market purchases -- to serve their loads.
Core customers will not have to pay for these additional generating resources. Through commission policy, adopted in December, they are given full access to Grant PUD’s lowest-cost power generation, which is presently power generated by Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams.
Rate increases for each specific rate group are as follows:
- 1- Residential 4%
- 2- General Service 5%
- 3 - Irrigation 7%
- 3b - Ag. Services 5%
- 6 – Street Lighting 5%
- 7 – Lg. General Service 7%
- 14 – Industrial 5%
- 15 – Large Industrial 1%
- 16 – Ag. Food Processing 2%
- 17 – Evolving Industry 6%
- 19 – Fast EV Charging 1%
- 85 – Ag Boiler 5%
Even with the rate changes for 2026, Grant PUD’s residential power price per kilowatt hour will be less than half of the Washington state average and about one-third of the national average.
For more information, see pages 6 to 54 of the commission packet and listen to vote and discussion at 49:49 on the commission recording.
Contract limits set for new Ephrata Service Center
Commissioners unanimously passed a motion to set the guaranteed maximum price for the new Ephrata Service Center construction at $188.6 million. Work on the service center, which is being built with the progressive design-build delivery method, began last fall near Highway 282 and Nat Washington Way in the eastern part of Ephrata.
The new service center includes space for the line department, power delivery engineering, transmission strategy and development, electric shop, transportation and facilities department, dispatch and control center, transmission strategy and development, warehouse and material yard, and mail room and copy center.
It will replace facilities that were constructed over 50 years ago and are not compliant with current local building codes. To accommodate maintaining or improving the business functions supported at the current Ephrata Service Center and bring the facilities up to current code requirements would require costly extensive renovations of facilities on an already congested site. The aging facilities lack adequate space to allow Grant PUD to effectively serve a customer base that has more than tripled in size in that time frame.
Since 1975 Grant PUD’s customer base has grown from:
- 16,170 active meters to 55,943
- 19 substations to 59
- 2,637 miles for electric line to 4,457 (477 of transmission and 3,980 of distribution lines)
- Zero miles of fiber-optic cable to 3,157 miles
- From 918.9 million to 6.3 billion kilowatt hours of power sold annually
To learn more about the service center project and follow the developments of the project, at the Ephrata Service Center webpage.
For more information, see pages 57 to 66 of the commission packet and listen to the reading, vote and discussion at 53:40 on the commission recording.
Commissioners also:
- Unanimously approved resolutions that will authorize General Manager John Mertlich to execute a power purchase agreement with VoltaGrid LLC and execute a retail service agreement with Vantage Data Centers for a temporary on-site natural gas power generation resource for the data center in Quincy. Both agreements are in the final stages of development between VoltaGrid, Vantage, and Grant PUD staff.
For more information, see pages 55 to 56 of the commission packet and listen to the readings and votes starting at 52:25 on the commission recording.
- Heard public comments about pending condemnation proceedings for up to four more parcels on the Wanapum to Mountain View 230 kV transmission line. The commission is expected to take action on the matter during their March 24 commission meeting.
Listen to discussion at 1:29 on the commission recording.