Miles and miles of trees over rugged, often nearly inaccessible territory, combined with lots of driving time, is an easy yet correct part of the answer.
WOEC’s rates are currently the highest in Oregon. The geography, terrain, low customer-to-mile-of-line ratio over most of the territories, and the oddly spread out territory make routine and emergency maintenance and repairs extremely difficult and expensive, both in terms of time and man-hours expended.
There are no other comparable electric utility territories in terms of the distances covered, the ruggedness of the terrain, the actual size of the territory, and the coverage by trees and density of underbrush. To compare states, according to WalletHub, Oregon is 43rd lowest in electricity costs with an average monthly electricity cost of $107, while South Carolina, with an average monthly electricity cost of $176, is the highest.
Also, most electric utilities are able to reduce costs by having major commercial accounts carry a lot of the cost burden, thus cutting costs for residential accounts. It is the norm for heavy industrial loads to make up around 50% of a utility’s revenue base. This means all the residential/small farm ratepayers together in a typical utility only pay half the cost of running the utility. At WOEC, it’s 90%. It’s 10% over the hill in Clatskanie.
Another factor here is the intense weather events that pop up. Big storms cause a lot of damage, and costs are not always covered by FEMA; when they do cover costs, it’s only up to 75% of the actual cost. Storm damage can be a big hit to the cash reserves, and 1 of the main reasons we have to build up this fund every year. Severe winter storms have been a costly annual event for WOEC since its beginning; it is just part of living here.
Source: Wallethub website