Planning, focus allow Grays Harbor PUD to avoid rate increase

Published 1:30 am Saturday, January 3, 2026

In November, your Grays Harbor PUD Commission passed the 2026 budget with $132.5 million in revenue and $123.6 million in expenses.

For the fourth time in five years, we did not increase customer rates. Your residential cost per kilowatt hour remains $0.0938.

That might sound routine, but in context, it represents something extraordinary. Over the past five years, Grays Harbor PUD increased rates by just 5% total — about 1% per year. During that same period, electricity rates increased 27-29% nationally.

The real test is comparing ourselves to peer utilities. Lewis County PUD saw increases of 14-15% over five years. Mason County PUD No. 3 saw 15-18%. Both are excellent utilities buying Bonneville Power Administration power, just like we do. Yet we held the line at 5%. Even large public utilities faced extraordinary pressures — Seattle City Light saw increases exceeding 30%. Investor-owned Puget Sound Energy saw similar increases.

For an average customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours monthly, this means $1,500 to $1,800 in savings over five years. That is $300 to $360 per year staying in family budgets — money available for groceries, school activities, or savings, not higher utility bills.

How did we do it? First, relentless focus on our mission: “High value utility services at the lowest practical cost.” Every budget line gets tested — is this a need or a want? That discipline let us absorb over $2 million in costs rather than pass them to ratepayers.

Second, strategic decisions made years ago are paying dividends. In 2024, we shifted to the load-following power product with the Bonneville Power Administration — buying only the power you need, when you use it. No market speculation. When electricity prices spiked in 2021-2022 and utilities nationwide saw 11% single-year increases, Grays Harbor PUD stayed stable.

Third, we stay focused on our core mission: delivering reliable electricity. While other utilities chase shiny projects — generating their own natural gas, building solar farms, launching broadband ventures, experimenting with technologies outside their expertise — we focus on what we do best. No mission creep draining resources. No experiments funded by ratepayer dollars. Every dollar you pay goes toward keeping your lights on reliably at the lowest practical cost. That focus delivers results.

As your elected commissioners, we serve Grays Harbor County voters. We have no shareholders demanding returns. We live here, work here, and answer only to ratepayers.

We enter 2026 with a $16.2 million capital budget and no new debt. While utilities nationwide saw 27-29% rate increases over recent years by chasing projects beyond their mission, your Grays Harbor PUD held the line at 5% by doing one thing exceptionally well.

That is the public power difference.