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Show nent are used to help pay irrigation costs, the price of power will be higher than it otherwise would need to be. TABLE 5.-Regional electric power costs, revenues of se- lected utilities from sale of electric power to commercial and industrial consumers, 1948, in 6 United States regions * Cents Num- Region Utility Ownership ' per kilowatt-hour ber of customers Columbia Basin__ Portland General Electric Pr 0.72 18,901 Co. Washington Water Power Pr .63 13,229 Co. Montana Power Co........ Pr .47 15,990 Bonneville Power Admin- Pub .22 23 istration.1 West South Cen- City of San Antonio, Tex. Pub 1.64 16,499 tral States. Houston Lighting & Pr .96 29,277 Power Co. Grand River Dam Au- Pub .46 6 thority, Okla.» East North Cen- City of Cleveland, Ohio,. Pub 1.92 9,023 tral States. Detroit Edison Co........ Pr 1.41 95.029 Commonwealth Edison Pr 1.40 145,677 Co., 111. City of Lansing, Mich.... Pub 1.31 3,827 East South Cen- Louisville Oas & Electric Pr .90 16,545 tral States. Co. Alabama Power Co._____ Pr .82 31,934 Tennessee Valley Author- Pub .31 638 ity.* New England...... Boston Edison Co......... Pr 2.16 74,031 City of Holyoke, Mass.- Pub 1.96 3,270 New England Power Co.1. Pr 1.38 34 Middle Atlantic Consolidated Edison Co. Pr 2.48 404,892 States. of New York. Buffalo-Niagara Electric Pr .76 40,431 Corp. Central New York Power Pr .98 28,604 Corp. Philadelphia Electric Co. Pr 1.20 143,045 Niagara Falls Power Co.». Pr .28 26 1 Net after tax payments, or payments in lieu of taxes, but without adjustment for other variables. Among the variables for which no adjustments were made are: Price level during plant construction; allo- cation of portion of project cost to other purposes or grant for a part of the construction cost; rate of interest and rate of return; interest during construction, amortization period or depreciation rate; insurance pay- ments or payments in lieu thereof; transmission and distribution facilities required; system load factor; and number of customers and average use per customer. > Pub-Public; Pr-Private. 1 These agencies and companies generally sell power to large distribu- tors for retail distribution rather than direct to residential or commercial users. The rates indicated here are those charged to a few industrial customers using large quantities of energy at high load factor, as con- trasted with the general commercial and industrial service represented by the rates shown for other companies in the table. Source: Federal Power Commission. Effect of Region-Wide Power Rates Present practice for federally operated power facilities in the basin is the maintenance of a uni- form power rate for wholesale power for resale throughout the Pacific Northwest, including all of the United States part of the basin. Several advantages result from uniform region- wide power rates, provided the formulation of indi- vidual projects and the determination of their eco- nomic feasibility have been made on a sound basis. A uniform region-wide rate makes a regional power pool much more feasible to operate than otherwise would be the case. Region-wide rates would spread the benefits of relatively low-cost power throughout the entire region, rather than encourage concentrated development near the lowest cost sources of power. A region-wide uniform power rate makes it possible for industries to locate with respect to other advantages, especially transporta- tion and labor supply. Thus the net effect may be to intensify the industrial concentrations now exist- ing along the cheap transport waterways of the Columbia and Willamette, and along Puget Sound. It is to be expected that a number of the head- water power sites on the Columbia system will have higher power production costs than those on the lower river developments. Hence, a region-wide power rate will tend to favor upstream areas and thus in part compensate those areas for the losses incidental to reservoir flooding. Navigation Justification for existing and authorized naviga- tion facilities and improvements in the Columbia River Basin has been established on the basis of benefits to commerce. Single-purpose navigation projects are fully justified solely on this basis. In planning integrated navigation improvements, ad- vantage has been taken of all possibilities for mul- tiple-purpose development where collateral bene- fits can serve to reduce the costs assignable to navi- gation. In all such cases, the economic feasibility of the navigation features has been examined suf- ficiently to establish their justification together with the over-all justification for the project, although in the majority of cases final allocation of costs and benefits has not been made. Pending final alloca- tions for the multiple-purpose projects, no over-all benefit-cost ratio can be given for the navigation program even though the components of the pro- gram are known to be economically sound. In theory, the major portion of the benefits from navigation improvements should accrue to the gen- 31 |