Golden Valley Electric plans prepaid power option for members, pending state approval

Golden Valley Electric Association plans to let members pay for power in advance and skip the deposit, under a voluntary prepaid billing program staff presented to the co-op's board on Sept. 22. The co-op expects the program to open to members by the end of November, pending approval from the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.

Melissa Connor, the co-op's member services manager, and Daniel Heckman, its regulatory manager, presented the program. The board meeting recap says it would let eligible residential members pay ahead, track daily use and see how much credit remains on their account.

Enrollees would make a first payment of at least $100. They could add money at any time. Daily usage data and low-balance alerts would arrive through MyGVEA, the co-op's online account system. Paper bills would stop while a member is enrolled.

Participants would pay no deposit and no reconnect fee as long as the account stays open. An account that runs out of credit is disconnected. Restoring service requires a $100 credit balance. Power returns automatically once that payment is made.

Members with medical necessity accounts, which flag a medical need for power, are excluded, as are members with net metering accounts, who generate some of their own power, such as from solar panels. Tenants could join with landlord approval. Members who already owe a balance could set up a payment arrangement to pay it down before enrolling.

GVEA plans to test the program with its own employees this month and train staff in November. As of Oct. 2, the commission's online records showed no GVEA filing for the program.

Separately, GVEA's fuel and purchased power charge rose on June 1 from about 12.8 to 20.7 cents per kilowatt-hour, about $46 more a month for an average residential member, then fell to about 18 cents on Sept. 1, about $15 less, the co-op says.