Grand Valley Power is hiking its electricity rates by what amounts to 4% for the average residential customer, an adjustment aimed in part at ensuring that those customers who also have their own solar power will pay a fairer share of the utility’s costs of doing business.

The change takes place Nov. 1 and will be reflected in bills the rural electric association’s customers, who are members of the cooperative, receive in December.

It last adjusted rates more than two years ago, and since then its operating costs have climbed. Grand Valley Power has responded with measures such as purchasing lightly used fleet vehicles rather than new ones, but its revenues still aren’t keeping pace with cost increases.

The utility’s CEO, Tom Walch, said it has been seeing a “very unusual phenomenon” fo

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