Columbus, Neb. – Nebraska Public Power District’s (NPPD) retail and wholesale customers will see steady rates in 2024 following a vote by the board of directors Thursday.
NPPD retail customers will experience 11 consecutive years of stable rates, while wholesale customers who purchase electricity from NPPD will also see no overall rate increase for the seventh straight year. NPPD will be making adjustments within different retail rate classes, but overall, NPPD base rates will remain steady. Details on each rate class can be found on NPPD.com.
In addition, the NPPD Board of Directors has voted to provide approximately $57 million to wholesale customers in the form of a Production Cost Adjustment (PCA) credit. This is the sixth consecutive year that NPPD’s wholesale customers will receive a PCA credit.
“We’re excited to announce another year of stable rates, which comes thanks to the hard work of our entire team who constantly strives to provide low-cost, reliable, and sustainable energy to our customers, during a time when supply chain issues and rising costs remain a constant challenge” says NPPD President and CEO Tom Kent. “The Public Power model continues to be a strength for Nebraska, and NPPD’s diverse generation mix continues to be highly competitive and regularly dispatched in the Southwest Power Pool’s Integrated Market, providing direct benefits to our wholesale and retail customers, through continued low rates and reinvestments in our infrastructure and equipment.”
NPPD benchmarks its wholesale rate with roughly 800 members of the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC) on a yearly basis. Several years ago, NPPD set a goal to be in the first quartile – which is at or below the 25th percentile for power cost. In 2020 NPPD met the goal for the first time since implementing the benchmark by finishing at the 23.2 percentile, then in 2021 improved to the 12.4 percentile, and now that data for 2022 has been finalized, NPPD’s rank improved further, finishing at the 11.7 percentile. As a not-for-profit public corporation, NPPD is able to share surpluses with customers in the form of credits which have been applied to the wholesale power bills and have effectively lowered the cost of power.
NPPD also benchmarks its retail rate using data from U.S. Energy Information Administration, who collected data from over 2,600 utilities across the nation. NPPD’s goal is to maintain a total retail base rate position among the lowest 15 percent of providers, and NPPD’s most recent ranking improved from 7.7 percent in 2021 to 3.1 percent in 2022. Overall, the state of Nebraska ranks amongst the lowest residential rates in the nation. NPPD serves 79 communities at the retail level, which includes residential, commercial, and industrial customers in communities such as Kearney, Norfolk, Plattsmouth, Scottsbluff, and York.
