Keeping the lights on shouldn't break the bank

It’s too expensive to drive, but lately it feels just as expensive to stay home. Each month, power and utility bills continue to grow, leaving many people wondering what triggered the increase. 

Here in North Idaho, navigating that challenge deserves a comprehensive and honest discussion. 

The average power bill for North Idaho residents has increased anywhere from 7% to 10% over the past year and, depending on which provider you use, further increases may be scheduled. 

The question is: Why? 

The answer can be broken into three or four likely factors, but all those reasons lead to the simple answer. Power companies are using additional funds to prepare for future growth. 

Our region continues to grow. New homes, new businesses, electric vehicles and increased demand for heating and cooling all require more electricity. Our current power grid remains reliable today, but utilities and regional planners are already investing in transmission lines, substations and wildfire protection because they know future demand is coming. 

We can’t stop the growth. We live in one of the most beautiful and desirable places in America, and we just happen to have available space. But why are today’s residents paying for future gains from tomorrow’s newcomers? 

Knowing and understanding that these upgrades are going to be absolutely necessary is a tough pill to swallow, but is there a way to responsibly pay for them without shifting so much of the burden onto customers? 

There are certainly a few approaches we should strive to avoid. The first is doing too little and hoping for the best. Sure, that might stop rate increases in the interim, but when deferred maintenance catches up, those costs, usually appearing during some sort of emergency, are rarely cheap. 

The other side of that coin is to panic and overbuild for the future. Spending millions on projects that may not require additional capacity for decades should be avoided at all costs because those expenses tend to be passed on to customers. 

We have to find a middle ground that includes practical solutions that protect the reliability of our power supply while also respecting ratepayers. 

The first and easiest solution is to make growth pay for itself. New developers should not be given sweetheart deals on the infrastructure required to serve their business interests. The absolute worst thing that happens here is that growth slows for a day or two.

We need a commitment from our utility companies that they will strive to keep costs as low as possible while pursuing targeted investments that make sense for North Idaho customers. Energy-efficiency programs should be expanded because the cheapest electricity is the electricity we never have to generate. 

We should also encourage technologies that reduce peak demand, such as smart electric vehicle charging and time-of-use rates that reward consumers for using power during off-peak hours. Small changes spread across thousands of customers can delay costly infrastructure projects for years. 

Just as importantly, we should avoid turning energy policy into an ideological battle. Reliable electricity is not a partisan issue. Whether power comes from hydropower, natural gas, nuclear energy, renewables or future technologies, the goal should be the same: affordable, dependable service for families and businesses. 

North Idaho’s energy future does not require panic. It requires transparency and sound planning.