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East Oregonian
Friday, November 29, 2019
UEC: Industrial development feeds Umatilla Electric Cooperative growth
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growth is likely driven by
new Amazon data centers
springing up around Uma-
tilla and Morrow counties,
as well as a few other major
industrial projects such
as the new Lamb Weston
expansion in Hermiston.
In its 2008 annual report,
UEC reported that industrial
customers made up 24.7%
of its revenue. In 2018, that
number was up to 64.2%.
Echenrode said resi-
dential sales in the past
eight years have increased
2.5%. Irrigation sales have
increased 19%, small com-
mercial sales are up 27%,
and large commercial/indus-
trial sales are up 500%.
Such a large increase in
industrial use to UEC’s sys-
tem naturally brings up ques-
tions about who is paying
for that growth. Echenrode
said while many coopera-
tives build some money for
growth into everyone’s fees,
UEC’s philosophy is that if
it needs to build new lines
or other infrastructure to
accommodate a specific cus-
tomer, it is that customer that
should foot the bill instead of
all UEC’s customers.
“Those who trigger the
growth, pay for the growth,”
he said.
Power costs
While equipment, infra-
structure and personnel to
serve customers are a part
of UEC’s costs, purchasing
electricity from suppliers
takes up most of the coopera-
tive’s budget. In 2018, 76.6%
of UEC’s expenditures were
for wholesale power.
Much of that power
comes from the federally
owned Bonneville Power
Administration, which sells
electricity from 31 dams, a
nuclear power plant and sev-
eral small nonfederal power
plants.
EO file photo
A substation technician installs a ground wire on a riser structure in December 2017 at a new Umatilla Electric Cooperative
substation on East Elm Avenue in Hermiston.
In 2011, UEC signed a
20-year purchasing con-
tract with BPA, after BPA
changed its rate structure.
Demand for BPA’s power
was outstripping supply, and
so BPA calculated a “high
water mark” for utilities.
The complicated formula
used the amount of power
BPA was able to produce in
its lowest-performing years
(when dry weather meant
low stream flows through
hydroelectric dams) and
the utilities’ usage in recent
years.
Each utility was then
assigned an amount of power
it could purchase from BPA
at “Tier 1” rates, which BPA
would set at cost. Any power
the utility needed beyond
that amount would be con-
sidered “Tier 2” power, to be
purchased at market rates.
In high-water years, BPA
would sell its excess power
into the market and use the
profits to keep Tier 1 prices
low.
“The assumption at the
time was that power costs
were going up,” Echenrode
said.
Power costs in the mar-
ket didn’t go up, however.
Instead they dropped, due to
a confluence of factors that
included fracking causing
natural gas to drop to a frac-
tion of its previous price.
Rapid growth in Herm-
iston and surrounding areas
has pushed UEC well into
needing Tier 2 power for its
newer customers each year,
but Echenrode said it so far
hasn’t hurt them — the mar-
ket price is actually lower
than BPA’s Tier 1 prices.
“Nobody would have ever
thought of that when the con-
tracts were signed in (2011),”
he said.
UEC’s contract with BPA
is up in 2028, but Echenrode
said that he expected they
would be purchasing power
from BPA well beyond that.
“They’ve been very good
to us, and very good to our
customers,” he said.
Renewable energy
Echenrode said it was
hard to know what market
rates for power would do
in the future, particularly
as more states enact laws
around renewable energy
and cap and trade.
Oregon Democrats are
trying to pass cap-and-trade
legislation of their own,
which Echenrode said will
“likely have a cost.”
In 2016 the legisla-
ture passed a law requir-
ing investor-owned utili-
ties to get at least 50% of
their power from renew-
able sources by 2040, and
consumer-owned utilities
such as UEC to must get
to at least 25%. The law
does not include existing
hydropower from dams as
a renewable source, because
lawmakers stated the intent
was to encourage creation
of new renewable energy
sources.
Echenrode said the mar-
ket “may demonstrate
renewables are less expen-
sive over time,” or the law
may force UEC to purchase
more expensive electricity.
Compliance is shown
through Renewable Energy
Certificates, and Echenrode
said UEC has been build-
ing those up now to protect
it from spikes in the market.
Despite some uncer-
tainty about the future of
the market, Echenrode said
UEC is bound to serve all
customers in its service
area, and he believes that
overall the area’s growth
is good for residents. The
growth, for example, has
helped pay for new equip-
ment to serve customers,
and enabled improvements
such as UEC burying miles
of lines on Weston Moun-
tain to decrease fire hazards.
After BPA recently
announced an increase
in its prices, UEC will be
adjusting its rates by about
2% in 2020, Echenrode
said — something the util-
ity will send more informa-
tion to customers about in
December.
For customers worried
about their personal or busi-
ness electric bill, he said,
UEC works hard to help
people increase their energy
efficiency through free
home energy audits, low-
cost loans, cash rebates,
weatherization and more.
Information about those
programs can be found at
www.umatillaelectric.com/
energy-efficiency.
“The cheapest kilowatt
hour is the kilowatt hour you
save,” Echenrode said.
Delivered: Volunteers spent the day
delivering dinner to people’s doorsteps
Continued from Page A1
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Donated pies sit ready for Thursday’s Thanksgiving dinner at the Salvation Army in Pend-
leton.
Chance: ‘This is a perfect moment’
Continued from Page A1
Breshears family: Karma,
13, Layton, 11, Savan-
nah, 7, Drake, 8, and their
mother Danielle.
Danielle said 8-year-old
Drake was the reason she
suggested
volunteering
at the dinner to her four
children.
“Drake has a huge
heart for the homeless,”
she said. “He’s been beg-
ging to work at the warm-
ing station. He also wants
to make hot chocolate and
give it out to them.”
As she spoke, Drake
walked by with a plate of
turkey and all the trim-
mings. She smiled.
“This time of year is
about giving,” she said.
“Kids get in the mode of
receiving so much. It’s
nice for them to have a
chance to give.”
Drake wasn’t quite as
big picture as his mom.
“I take people’s plates
and serve food to them,”
he said. “They seem
happy. I like it.”
Drake’s
older
sis-
ter Karma said she was
enjoying the opportunity
now that she was here.
Her mother, she said, had
taken them by surprise.
“But we’re up for it,”
Karma said. “I was a little
scared at first that I’d drop
a plate, but I’m over that.”
Danielle served up
plates, stealing glances at
her progeny as they expe-
rienced the joy of giving to
others. It doesn’t get much
better as far as teaching
life lessons.
“This is a perfect
moment,” she said.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0810.
United States.
“Oh, I’ve been all over,”
he said.
The pair met in Denver,
Colorado, when Robert —
originally from Kansas —
would deliver equipment to
the railroad company where
Terri-Lynn worked at the
time. Together, they moved
back to Terri-Lynn’s home-
town of Hermiston to care
for her aging parents.
For years, Terri-Lynn
was working at the Union
Pacific Railroad in Herm-
iston, but due to recent lay-
offs, she retired unexpect-
edly early last month after
more than 27 years in the
industry.
“But you have to look at
it in a positive light,” she
said. “Now we have more
time to do volunteering like
this.”
Their goal is to bring
food and a little celebratory
spirit to people who might
not be able to make it out
of the house to attend the
free Community Fellow-
ship Dinner, which is held
at Hermiston High School
each Thanksgiving after-
noon and open to everyone
in the community. Some-
times, they’ll give rides to
and from the high school for
people hoping to get out of
the house for the holiday.
The pair also volunteer
to deliver meals on Christ-
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Volunteers dish up dinners to go during Thursday’s Commu-
nity Thanksgiving Dinner at Hermiston High School.
mas. One year, they remem-
ber delivering meals to a
local motel. The woman
who answered the door was
grateful, and explained that
the food was all her family
had in the way of celebra-
tion that year.
“You don’t know what
someone’s circumstance is.
We’re so blessed, it’s nice to
be able to bless others,” said
Terri-Lynn. “Put a smile on
someone’s face.”
They always seem to be
smiling too.
Before heading back
to the high school to load
their car up for round two
of deliveries, the pair swung
by a residence on Hermis-
ton’s west side.
Robert ran out to make
the delivery. The woman
inside used to volunteer at
the Thanksgiving dinner
and had two dogs — includ-
ing a dachshund.
“That dog was a dog-
and-a-half long,” he joked.
Back at the high school,
tables in the main com-
mons were filled with fami-
lies chowing down, a flower
bouquet at every table.
According to Makayla
Humphreys,
who
was
checking in volunteers,
there were some last minute
no-shows Thursday morn-
ing due to illness.
“Flu season is here,”
she said. “But in the end, it
always works out that we
have enough people.”
The nonprofit didn’t have
exact totals for how many
people were served Thurs-
day, but according to board
chair Gary Humphreys, the
Thanksgiving dinner fed
over 700 people last year.
Measure 49: Local governments, landowners don’t appear eager to take advantage
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To mitigate the risks
from such home-building,
DLCD enacted rules in
2014 under which landown-
ers in farm and forest zones
can transfer their develop-
ment rights to rural resi-
dential zones or areas that
have already been largely
subdivided.
Since then, however, not
one county government has
implemented an ordinance
that would allow landown-
ers to transfer these devel-
opment credits, Marvin
said. That’s likely because
county officials have lim-
ited time and resources to
create such programs.
“They’d have to compete
with other things on their
agenda to get this in,” she
said.
If landowners were
excited about transferring
their development rights,
they’d probably demand
that county officials make
that option available —
something that clearly
hasn’t happened, said Jim
Johnson, land use special-
ist with the Oregon Depart-
ment of Agriculture.
“There’s not, in my opin-
ion, a real demand for it,”
Johnson said. “If nobody is
asking for it, the county has
other things to do.”
While the develop-
ment credit transfer system
should be a “win-win for
everybody,” it’s likely that
Oregon’s program is too
restrictive to be enticing
to landowners, said Dave
Hunnicutt, president of the
Oregon Property Owners
Association.
Landowners are unlikely
to want to jump through the
program’s regulatory hur-
dles without an incentive,
Hunnicutt said. “There’d
better be something valu-
able at the end of that.”
Currently, development
credits can only be trans-
ferred within the same
county, which is a geo-
graphical limitation that
probably discourages land-
owners, he said.
Those in remote rural
counties would be more
interested in the program
if they could transfer the
development credits to
more urbanized areas, Hun-
nicutt said.
Allowing more flexibil-
ity makes sense, since geo-
graphical restrictions won’t
prevent property develop-
ment under Measure 49.
“Those are going to
happen and there’s noth-
ing anyone can do to stop
them,” Hunnicutt said.
Another
possibility
could be to allow additional
dwellings to be built with
the development credits if
they’re transferred from
farm and forest land into
rural residential zones, said
Rep. Brian Clem, D-Sa-
lem, who chairs the House
Agriculture and Land Use
Committee.
“I feel like we need to
sweeten the pot somehow,”
Clem said.