Electricity gets a little bit cheaper

Merced Irrigation District, known for selling water, has made it a little cheaper to buy another product -- electricity.

MID's board of directors voted in June to reduce by one-third the surcharge its electricity customers pay. The decrease amounts to a savings of 0.4 percent per kilowatt-hour, according to MID.

MID was able to reduce the cost because energy prices have plummeted since last year. The agency is passing the savings to its customers, said Dan Pope, MID's general manager.

In September 2008, MID adopted a 1.2 percent surcharge, which amounted to a 9 percent annual increase.

The current surcharge reduction from 1.2 cents to .8 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to MID, should help its customers across the board.

A kilowatt-hour is the amount of electricity when 1,000 watts are used for an hour by consumers.

MID's customer base is divided between residential and commercial. Some 85 percent of the roughly 90 megawatts MID sold last year went to its commercial and industrial customers.

A megawatt is equivalent to one million watts.

The average cost per kilowatt hour for its 6,464 residential customers is 14.83 cents a kilowatt-hour; the average price for commercial electricity, which is load-based, runs from 9.9 cents a kilowatt-hour to 12.4 cents.

Load-based electrical charges are based upon the amount of electricity used.

--Jonah Owen Lamb

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