Tri-State, electric cooperative announce plans to settle fight
As state regulators were set Monday to speed up a hearing on a contract dispute between wholesale power provider Tri-State and one of its Colorado members, the two said they had agreed to settle the matter.
Tri-State Generation and Transmission and DeltaMontrose Electric Association wrote in a filing to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission that they were seeking approval of the proposal from their respective boards and would submit something Friday to the PUC.
Even though a settlement would clear the conflict off the PUC’s docket, one of the commissioners voiced concern about the other 17 electric associations in Colorado that get their power from Tri-State.
Commissioner Frances Koncilja said because TriState has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to oversee its rates, the utility’s members in Colorado and other states will have to take future complaints to Washington, D.C.
It was last week’s vote by the Tri-State board of directors to switch to federal regulation that moved Delta-Montrose to ask the PUC to move up a hearing on its attempt to end its contract with the regional utility.
Even if the PUC had decided in favor of DeltaMontrose, it’s possible that once Tri-State is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, it could argue that Colorado’s decision shouldn’t apply, a lawyer for the utility conceded during a hearing last week.
The dispute between TriState and Delta-Montrose is the latest to crop between the utility and its member cooperatives.
Delta-Montrose asked the PUC to intervene because it said the exit fee Tri-State wanted was unreasonable and discriminatory.
In 2016, the Kit Carson Electric Association paid $37 million to break its contract with Tri-State.
Kit Carson, like DeltaMontrose, complained that Tri-State’s rates are too high and isn’t moving quickly enough to reduce its use of coal and increase the use of renewable energy.
The La Plata County Electric Association in Durango has said it is exploring whether it could buy power for less from other sources.
Tri-State says a third of its electricity is produced by renewable energy.
Tri-State is a not-forprofit wholesale power provider with a total of 43 member cooperatives in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and New Mexico. Now, the board, elected by member associations, approves the electric rates.