EPHRATA — Grant County Public Utility District commissioners will decide in early 2025 whether to raise the application fee for new large load customers. New clients will need to pay significantly more than they have historically under the new rules. 

The current application fee is $2,500 for customers asking for one-half to two megawatts, wrote Christine Pratt, PUD public information officer. Customers asking for two to 10 megawatts pay $6,500, the10 to 20 megawatts fee is $15,000. Customers asking for up to 40 megawatts pay $52,000. 

The fee would remain the same for requests between one-half and two megawatts. Prospective customers asking for more than that would pay by the megawatt. Requests for two to 10 megawatts would be $50,000 per MW; from 10 to 40 megawatts would be $160,000 per MW and more than 40 megawatts would pay $240,000 per MW. 

Andy Wendell, senior manager of large power solutions, said the goal is to help PUD employees get a better idea of which customers applying for PUD power are serious, and which aren’t. 

“One of our objectives is to create an environment of more certainty for our load forecasting. We do load forecasting throughout the year, and the load forecasting helps us make decisions around purchasing energy, building infrastructure, investing in our infrastructure. We’re working hard to improve our load forecasting,” he said.  

“One of the ways we can do that is to engage the community and try to understand where growth is planned,” he added. “Additionally, we have (a list of applicants) and we’re trying to understand what we refer to as speculative load versus actual load, or those customers that are truly committed to be here and want to set up and operate in Grant County,” he added.  

Wendell estimated fulfilling all current customer requests would require about 2,800 megawatts of additional power. The existing customer demand is nowhere near that, he said.  

“We have a summer peak and a winter peak. During our peak, our customers across the entire county demand just over 1,000 megawatts of power,” Wendell said.  

The PUD has the majority share, about 63%, of the electricity generated by Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams. Wendell said the PUD is projected to be using all of its share by 2026.  

That means the PUD will have to find alternative sources, and they won’t be as economical as PUD-generated electricity, he said. Terry Pyle, the commission chair for 2025, said potential customers should be ready to pay the cost of that extra demand. 

“What we want to accomplish is that people who want to be hooked up to bear the cost of being hooked up,” Pyle said.  

Existing customers shouldn’t have to pay the cost of finding new generation sources or building the infrastructure to get it here, Pyle said. 

“Obviously, there’s a benefit – people coming in, bringing jobs and paying tax dollars and those kinds of things, but we’re trying to make it as equitable as we can. Those who create a cost, we’re trying to get them to bear that cost,” Pyle added. 

The existing system takes applications in the order they are submitted, Wendell said. If some potential customers drop out due to the new fees, businesses that are serious about building in Grant County can move up the line, he said. 

“We really want to move those folks that want to be here closer to the top of the queue,” he said.  

Figuring out who’s serious will give the PUD more information to help with planning, Wendell said. 

“As the district is faced with bringing power in from the grid, more power into the county, that requires building big transmission lines and other infrastructure. If we have more certainty that we have a queue that’s going to use that energy, then we have more certainty around those investments,” he said.