Compared to what consumers in California and the Pacific Northwest are paying to light up their Christmas trees, Empire Electric members are getting a bargain-basement deal this year.

Empire, a rural electric cooperative, hasn’t raised its residential rate of 6.289 cents per kilowatt hour since 1991. The newly deregulated California market, however, is charging consumers a high of 82 cents per hour.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission, a non-profit association supplying 44 rural cooperatives in four states with wholesale power, sells electricity to Empire at 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Tri-State has not raised its rates in 16 years.

Neal Stephens, general manager of Empire Electric, predicted that California’s woes will set back electrical deregulation in Colorado for several years, at least. "If we deregulate, and if we do it inappropriately, that’s exactly the kind of thing that could happen here," he explained.

"It comes down to market penetration. If all the power companies out there have two-thirds of the market, you’re just subject to the whims and vagaries of supply and demand. And if they don’t have the supply and the demand is out there, they can charge whatever they want in a deregulated market, and that’s what we’re seeing," said Stephens.

California’s seventh consecutive power emergency was declared Sunday and a record average price was set in the state’s primary electricity market. California came within 5 percent of running out of available power that day.

Electricity prices in the Pacific Northwest have shot up so high that Kaiser Aluminum Corporation, the second-largest aluminum maker in the country, has announced it will shut down its smelter in Mead, Washington for about 10 months.

Jim Van Someren, a spokesman for Tri-State, said that its board of directors recently approved keeping wholesale electrical prices steady in 2001. Van Someren couldn’t guarantee that prices wouldn’t rise in 2002, however. "Our track record shows that we’ve done a good job in holding prices steady, but there’s no positive way to tell what might change in the future," said Van Someren.

He said that Tri-State’s projections indicate that the company will be able to supply enough electricity to meet its members demands in the future. "Certainly what has transpired in California is cause enough for concern, but we hope that the decision makers throughout the state will take note and make the right decision for consumers."

This month Empire will write $722,594 worth of checks to members who purchased electricity in 1987 and 1993. Like Tri-State, its non-profit status requires that any revenues over and above expenses will eventually be returned to the membership.

Including 1997 revenues, Empire has generated $11,964,718 in capital credits that have yet to be returned to its members. Tri-State, in turn, owes Empire $9,454,159 for profits generated from the last seven years. The company uses the unreturned margin, in lieu of loans, to provide for new equipment and facilities as well as upgrades to poles, wires and transformers.

"At a minimum we try to give back what we get from Tri-State (each year), and we always try to give back a little bit more," said Stephens.

In ’98, it gave back $1 million in capital credits to members, and in ’97 it returned $1,349,612 — the most it has ever given back. This year it is giving back only the amount that it received from Tri-State.