OKANOGAN – The Okanogan County Public Utility District is responding to an increase to the cost of electricity purchased by the utility from the Bonneville Power Administration with increase of it’s own.

The BPA, a federal agency which is the marketing agent for power from all of the federally-owned hydroelectric projects in the Pacific Northwest, is increasing the cost of power it sells to Okanogan County PUD by approximately $1 million a year. Effective Nov 1, 2015, the Cost of Power Adjustment (COPA) will increase from $.0040/kwh to $.0056/kwh for the PUD’s electricity customers, according to a press release issued by the district last Monday.

COPA is a separate line on the PUD customer’s monthly bill and is calculated by multiplying the number of kilowatt hours (kwh) by the new COPA amount of $.0056. For a residential customer using 500 kwh per month, the increase will total $0.80. A customer using 1,000 kwh per month will see an increase of $1.60, said the release.