Energy at Cost, Value at Home: How Lewis County PUD Thinks About Local Power
The community-owned utility delivers electricity at cost — and works to keep the value that energy creates right here in Lewis County.
CHEHALIS, Wash., July 10, 2026 — Public Utility District No. 1 of Lewis County (LCPUD) delivers some of the most affordable electricity in the country, and the community-owned utility says those low rates are the starting point for something larger: the value Lewis County residents and businesses create when they put that energy to work.
The reasoning starts with cost — LCPUD’s residential customers pay ~7 cents per kilowatt-hour, well below the national average, which recent federal data put near 18 cents. Those low rates reflect the region’s hydropower and the way public power is priced: at cost, with no profit margin built in. That low input price lands on the books of every local employer and keeps money in ratepayers’ pockets.
What happens next is what the District calls productive use. When a business uses affordable power to make, grow, or build something worth more than the energy it consumed — turning timber into lumber, running the line that produces a finished good, or powering irrigation pumps that bring crops water — it creates new value that stays local, as wages, investment, and tax base.
The stakes are measured in the county’s own numbers. Lewis County’s economy produced roughly $3.9 billion in goods and services in 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Manufacturing alone is one of the county’s three largest employment sectors, supporting about 3,300 of the roughly 36,000 jobs held across the county. Every one of those businesses draws on electricity — and every dollar of value added on top of that energy is a dollar that can stay in Lewis County.
That advantage matters more each year, because Lewis County is growing. The county’s population has risen more than 5 percent since 2020 — one of the faster growth rates in Washington — bringing new homes and businesses onto the local system and steadily lifting demand for power. After holding roughly flat for years, electricity use across the Northwest is now projected to climb over the coming decade. When regional demand rises, wholesale power prices tend to rise with it, pressuring everyone’s rates — which makes the District’s low, at-cost local electricity an important advantage for Lewis County.
Because LCPUD is not-for-profit and sets rates at cost, the margin an investor-owned utility would collect as profit never leaves the community in the first place. Value retention begins at the point of generation — before a single kilowatt is ever put to work — it runs down the power lines you see by the roadside and continues through everything Lewis County makes.
“We are owned by the people we serve, so success for us isn’t a dividend sent to shareholders — it’s how much value stays in this county,” said David Plotz, General Manager of LCPUD. “Low-cost power is the tool. A stronger Lewis County is the whole point.”
“When a local employer turns low-cost power into a product or a paycheck, that margin becomes a Lewis County wage, a Lewis County investment, a business that stays,” Plotz said. “Keeping that loop closed — energy produced in our region and put to work in our community — is what we hold front of mind in every rate we set and every decision we make.”
Managing supply is the other side of the coin, where the District works to keep costs down. LCPUD serves its local customers first, drawing primarily on regional hydropower and nuclear, along with wind acquired to meet state renewable requirements. When the community needs less than the power the District has available, the surplus is sold into the regional wholesale market; when local demand runs ahead of those resources, the District buys from that same market. Prices there rise and fall — sometimes above the District’s cost, sometimes below — and getting the most value out of that position is part of the job. In 2023, roughly 12 percent of the electricity the District handled was sold to other utilities, and the proceeds offset costs that would otherwise land on local bills. As regional demand and prices climb sharply, that surplus grows more valuable — both to the market that wants it and to the Lewis County ratepayers who own it — and shortfalls become more expensive.
So the District is working to add new generation of its own, here in Lewis County. LCPUD is evaluating a slate of locally sited, cost-effective options — small hydro, pumped storage, modular natural gas, and geothermal — weighing each for what it can deliver to ratepayers at the lowest reasonable cost. Generation built close to home keeps more of the work of producing power — the jobs, the investment, the reliability — inside the county, and gives the District more of its own resources to lean on in the years ahead.
Safe, reliable, and affordable power is the bedrock on which Lewis County builds. As the county grows and the region’s appetite for power climbs, the District’s aim holds steady: keep the input low, keep the value local, and leave the community that owns this utility stronger.
About Lewis County Public Utility District
Lewis County PUD is a community-owned, locally governed utility providing power services and broadband internet infrastructure to approximately 36,000 customers throughout most of Lewis County and adjacent communities.