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One-time enrollment · 12-month access
Enroll NowGroup pricing available →Every rate vote starts with the same questions: how much does the utility need, who should pay, and how fast. This course walks you through the answers in plain language, with no accounting background needed.
This course explains how electric rates are set. It is written for board members, council members, commissioners, attorneys, and regulatory staff who do not have an accounting background.
A sample cooperative, Clearwater Electric, carries through the lessons, and a second cooperative, Prairie View, is used in the exercises. You build a revenue requirement, see what belongs in rate base, learn how fixed, energy, and demand charges reach the bill, and follow a rate case from filing to final order. The same standard applies to investor-owned, cooperative, and municipal utilities.
You finish with five tests of a rate decision and a list of questions to ask before you vote.
Explain why electric delivery is regulated and how the regulatory compact applies to investor-owned, cooperative, and municipal utilities.
Why electricity delivery is a natural monopoly, the regulatory compact, and the three ownership models that run through every lesson.
The total amount rates must collect, built from four components, with the Clearwater Electric Cooperative figures.
What earns a return, what does not, and why every capital project is also a rate decision.
How the revenue requirement becomes customer bills.
Who files, who intervenes, and what regulators decide for each type of utility.
The decisions that come before governing bodies and the questions to ask before voting.
