Morgan increases impact fees for electricity

As Morgan City plans ahead for the future it has become clear that like just about everything else, new construction in the city is going to cost more —— significantly more. An electric impact fee facilities plan and impact fee analysis recently performed by Active Power Engineering, for example, indicates that electric impact fees are going to have to more than double to keep up with the city’s needs in that area as it grows over the next 10 years.

The analysis recommended impact fee increases ranging from $1,635 (up from the current $538.020) for a 100-Amp residential service panel to $6,541 (up from $2,152.03) for a 400-Amp panel. It also suggested that commercial rates be similarly increased.

With input from Power Foreman Clark Crook, Mike Anderson of Active Power Engineering identified anticipated projects that in addition to providing for new growth would improve the system. The plan took into consideration any areas that could be annexed into the city over the next decade, along with future needs for potential EV charging stations or an increase in electrical vehicle use among Morgan residents.  

Current anticipated maintenance/upgrade projects include rebuilding some main lines, adding capacitors, more capacity, automated switching for outage restoration and tie-ins for some city roads, along with a new Mahogany-Island Road transmission line. These projects come with an estimated $21 million price tag in 2024 dollars. Some of the projects are system improvements intended to provide services to the service areas within the community at large. 

“There are some projects that increase the reliability of the power system,” Anderson said at the July 23 city council meeting. “In the power system in Morgan right now there are a lot of areas where you have a line that feeds out of town in certain directions and if you have a problem in that line, for example, everybody downstream on that line may be out of power. Some of the recommended projects are for tying those lines into another line so that you have more of a loop so if you have a problem in one section of line you can always feed those customers back from another direction.”

Some other projects will specifically provide for new growth and add about 5,844 kilovolt-amps of system capacity, Anderson said. The new growth would be about $3 million of the total cost.

“New power customers would shoulder the cost of the power infrastructure that's required to serve them as they come in so that the existing power customers don't bear the cost of new power infrastructure that's needed for those new customers or that new growth,” he said.

The areas along the 1-84 corridor, and the south and west sides of the city are projected to see the highest growth, the study found, while the north side of the city is expected to see some moderate growth. The study anticipated a growth of 2.3 percent per year over that decade.

Councilmember Dave Alexander expressed skepticism that growth would be that low.

“I can appreciate you have to look at what's been historical and so forth, but I think that there's maybe more potential than that,” he said. “Does that mean we just come back with a new study five years from now if that's not close to really what the actual is?”

If that’s the case, the city could revisit the impact fees within a few years, Anderson responded.

That evening the city council voted unanimously to adopt the electric impact fee facilities plan and its recommendations. The new fees are expected to be adopted by the city council on Aug. 13 and to go into effect 90 days after that. λ