October 11, 2007
Caliente to Raise Electricity Rates a Little Bit

By Dave Maxwell

Raising electrical rates to the residents of Caliente was discussed at the regular meeting of the City Council last week.

The 10.5 percent raise to the City from Lincoln County Power will mean local rates will have to be increased five tenths-of-a-cent per kilowatt-hour. Caliente retail customer rates will go from 09.5 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. A resolution will be drawn up and presented by the Council at a public meeting in the near future.

The increase will also have an affect on Bredero-Shaw Manufacturing, the Texas-based firm planning to build a plant in the Meadow Valley Industrial Park, although they remain committed to build the plant in Caliente. Bredero-Shaw expects to need about 5 megawatts of electricity. That is about equal to the amount of power needed to supply the entire needs of Caliente and Panaca combined.

Lincoln County Power has already said that in order to meet that need, another transformer will have to go in at the Antelope substation in Caliente, which will likely cost Bredero-Shaw $1 million. They will also have to pay part of the cost of having the upgraded 138Kv line built from the stations in Glendale, to Coyote Springs and into the Kane Springs valley.

As outlined in earlier meetings, Lincoln County Power Engineer Dave Luttrell has said LC Power will hold a $33 to $35 million sale of bonds on December 10, to raise funds for the new transmission and distribution systems. He explained that 14 miles of 138Kv line from the Reed-Gardner power plant and Tortoise substation at Glendale need to be installed up to the western edge of Coyote Springs. In addition, new transformers need to be put in at Tortoise, a new substation needs to be built at Coyote Springs, as well as another in Kane Springs valley, which will then tie the line to the old system going north.

Luttrell said the 138Kv line would provide about 80 megawatts of available capacity in the transmission lines. “We’ll have extra,” he said. Other users who come on line later, he said, will be charged a tie-in fee to help shoulder the cost of service.

City Councilman Tom Acklin said Bredero-Shaw has mentioned to him that since the plant is to be within the city limits, they would prefer to be just a regular commercial electrical customer to “not step on the City’s toes by putting in their own power lines.”

At the same time, Council members have not completely decided if they want to be the electrical provider for Bredero-Shaw, or if they want to have LC Power do it off their line going south out of Antelope.