Search My Account MENU About Us Community Electric Services Member Services Safety News & Outage Center Contact Us LPEA FACT CHECKER Do you have questions or concerns about LPEA's policies, procedures, budget, and/or general operations? The LPEA Fact Checker aims to answer your questions, correct any circulating misconceptions, and provide links to more information for full transparency. Send your questions to comments@lpea.coop. Why is LPEA raising rates in 2020? Couldn’t you just cut internal expenses to avoid the increase? What are LPEA’s capital credits? Is LPEA distributing those to its membership as it should be? Why is LPEA considering exiting its contract with Tri-State? I’ve heard LPEA has accrued legal expenses to pursue this. Is that a wise use of member monies? In 2019 LPEA expressed its concern about Tri-State’s debt load and the fact that Tri-State has not attempted to reduce the debt principle. What has LPEA learned about Tri-State’s debt reduction plan? What are the options LPEA is considering? Tri-State has announced a plan to reduce their rates by 8% in the next 3 years. Since 64% of your costs come from power supply, this will significantly reduce LPEA’s costs. Does LPEA plan to reduce my rates as a member because of this cost reduction? If we buy out or buy down our contract from Tristate and purchase power from other sources, wouldn’t the transmission needed to buy outside of Tristate still have to be purchased from Tristate? How much money has been spent on the research of the Tri-State buyout in the last 2 years? Does residential solar production fed into the grid count toward LPEA's local generation and thereby come up against the 5% limitation in the Tristate contract? Natural gas, the most common energy source for generating electricity, has been below $2.00 all winter. Oil, coal and natural gas are all at 30 year lows. Why haven't we had a rate decrease due to all this cheap energy? Can those of us who have home solar panels also benefit from signing up for the time of use program? We want to always time our use in the way that is most beneficial for all, and we can be flexible. How can solar generation be an asset to LPEA since it is only available while the sun is shining and battery technologies are still quite expensive? What are you doing to expand electric service to parts of our community that say they cannot get it? Is there a concern with having enough peak load capacity once shifted to solar and other non-peak renewables? La Plata County has a large amount of Natural Gas. Why are you lowering the Natural gas portion from 18% to 15%? Shouldn't we use local resources? We have several long-term successful hydro generation facilities in the area (Tacoma, Ames, Ouray). Is there any consideration for hydro generation? Has LPEA considered using biomass as part of its mix? I recently put an 8.25 kwh solar system on my home and was disappointed to only get $120 from LPEA for 10 years ownership of my solar energy credits. Shouldn't LPEA be encouraging solar by paying a more reasonable amount? Has any progress been made in addressing the service areas where solar installations are denied due to high line voltage or other grid problems? How could the big solar array project planned near the Four Corners coal plant impact us? Can local PV compete with purchased electricity cost wise? Has LPEA seen any interest/uptake of battery installations for energy storage? Are you developing a plan to encourage battery installations for the various grid benefits they can provide? Back to Top Customer Service 970.247.5786 or 888.839.5732 Business Hours Durango: Mon – Thu, 7:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Pagosa Springs: Mon – Thu, 7:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., closed 1:30-2:30 Social Media ©2021 La Plata Electric Association. A Touchstone Energy Cooperative