Railbelt grid organization schedules July 24 public meeting as tariff review continues

How Railbelt utility customers pay for transmission costs across the 700-mile grid could change under a proposed tariff now under state regulatory review. The Railbelt Transmission Organization holds a regular public meeting July 24 at 1 p.m. at the Alaska Energy Authority Board Conference Room, 813 West Northern Lights Blvd., Anchorage. The meeting will be conducted by electronic media, and members of the public can attend in person or by phone.

Also today, July 16, the RTO's Tariff Subcommittee meets at 2 p.m. and the Finance Subcommittee meets at 3 p.m. Both sessions are conducted by teleconference and are closed to the public under the RTO's bylaws, which provide that open meeting provisions do not apply to subcommittee meetings.

The proposed tariff would replace individual wheeling charges with a pooled cost system affecting customers of Chugach, Golden Valley, Homer, Matanuska, and Seward electric utilities.

HB 307, passed in May 2024, mandated creation of the RTO and required submission of an open access transmission tariff to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska by July 1, 2025. The RTO met that deadline, but the RCA suspended the filing for investigation on Aug. 14, 2025, and held a suspension hearing in March 2026.

The RTO's filing proposes to grandfather 11 existing transmission agreements, excluding them from the new tariff. Some utilities have argued that pooled cost allocation could disadvantage certain ratepayers compared with existing bilateral arrangements.