Unalaska, AK – During last week's council meeting the city's financial engineering consultant discussed how the new powerhouse might impact your electric bill. Michael Hubbard said that the efficiency of the new diesel-powered generators will offset the cost of the new units and the new building enough to reduce your bills by about 2 to 3 cents per kilowatt hour. Rates could go even lower if the city ends up providing power for new large customers, like the Kloosterboer Cold Storage Facility. Hubbard explained that the city will always have to pay for the basic power producing infrastructure, but the more power that's used and the more customers that are online, the more the cost of maintaining the system will be disbursed.

"And so the higher the loads, the more energy you can spread those costs over and so everybody would see a decrease in their rates on a per kilowatt hour basis," he said.

Hubbard said at the moment the city can handle bringing Kloosterboer, Horizon Lines, and others into the system. They would only encounter problems during high usage times if one of the new generators goes off-line. Hubbard said if they get proper maintenance, that shouldn't be an issue. "But if those loads are large enough if they're larger than we expect them to be, then we may have to buy the fourth unit to provide power for those loads."

The city's plan is to monitor the overall usage and see how it compares to current capacity. If necessary they will think about buying a fourth unit, but not until they are certain that the city absolutely needs the extra power production capabilities.