Homer Electric design fee for new hookups doubles to $1,000 Tuesday

Getting power to a new home in Homer Electric Association territory will cost $500 more starting Tuesday. Bigger three-phase hookups will cost about $3,500 more.

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska on Thursday approved HEA's request to double its design fee for new service, from $500 to $1,000. Everyone applying for a hookup under 2,000 feet pays it upfront, and the cooperative's credit toward new hookups can't be used to cover it. Longer extensions are billed at actual cost.

HEA told regulators the $500 fee, set in 2012, no longer covered the work. Its design costs averaged about $1,030 a job from 2023 through 2025, it said, compared with about $731 if the old fee had simply kept up with inflation. HEA said a higher fee means its other members cover less of the cost of new hookups.

For most new homes, the rest of the change evens out. HEA's standard single-phase hookup charge and the credit that offsets it both drop $1,000, to $5,800, so for eligible homeowners they still cancel each other out.

Applicants for three-phase service, a higher-capacity connection, lose $3,000 of their credit, which drops to $17,400. They pay whatever the job costs beyond that. Over 24 three-phase jobs since 2023, applicants paid an average of $38,800 after the credit, HEA regulatory affairs manager J.D. Draves told commission staff, ranging from nothing to more than $100,000.

The approval tightens two other rules. Concrete footers no longer count as a permanent foundation when HEA decides whether a site qualifies for the credit. And temporary construction power now ends Nov. 1 of the year after an application, when HEA cancels the application and shuts the power off.

The commission took public comment through Aug. 12 and received none.