by Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile

The need to flip on electric pumps to irrigate alfalfa fields came early this season for Cokeville-area farmers and ranchers Tim Teichert and Jason Thornock, thanks to extraordinarily dry conditions.

Pumping water from streams and underground aquifers takes a lot of electricity, and ag folks like Teichert and Thornock wince when they have to flick their switches to the on position: Thus begins the ticking of the utility meter. What’s usually a $150,000 irrigation-season electric bill for Thornock and $90,000 for Teichert will be higher — possibly tens of thousands of dollars, they say.

But the drought-induced extra expense might pale in comparison to what their electric provider has in store for them — come drought or not.

Rocky Mountain Power, Wyoming’s largest regulated electric utility, filed a request to the Wyoming Public Service Commission in May for a $71 million rate hike, which averages to an 8.8% increase among its 150,000 customers in the state, according to the company. 

For irrigators like Teichert and Jason Thornock, it’s a 37.7% increase — if state regulators give Rocky Mountain Power what it’s asking for.

“It’s going to kill us,” Thornock told WyoFile. “They’re going to make it very difficult to be a farmer in Rocky Mountain Power’s service area.”

Class system

Utilities commonly charge different rates to different customer classifications. Typically, customers with especially large electrical pulls on the system — think oil refineries and trona-and-soda ash operations, for example — pay higher rates because they demand more from the utility’s systemwide infrastructure and ongoing investments. Same goes for “Irrigation, Schedule 40,” where Teichert and Thornock — as well as about 1,000 other Wyoming irrigators — find themselves on the utility’s ledger.

Wyoming farmers and ranchers, who have the opportunity and means, have been shifting from flood irrigation — which requires no or minimal electricity — to pump-and-pivot irrigation in recent years to make more efficient use of limited water resources, Wyoming Stock Growers Association Executive Vice President Jim Magagna said.

“I don’t see how anybody can afford to do it when they suddenly face increases like this,” Magagna told WyoFile. “Particularly at a time of drought and when they’re already facing high costs, at a time when fertilizer costs have increased dramatically due to the Iranian situation.”

Rocky Mountain Power has been under scrutiny for a series of rate hikes in recent years. Excluding annual fuel cost adjustments, Wyoming regulators have allowed the company to increase its base rates nearly 16% since 2024. A 5.5% hike hit monthly bills in 2024, and rates increased another 10.2% in 2025.

Cost of service

So what’s driving this year’s proposed $71 million rate hike?

First, the company — a division of Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorp — wants to ensure a 7.56% rate of return, it said.

In public documents, Rocky Mountain Power also cites some $4.5 billion in new capital projects across six states, higher operations and maintenance costs, inflationary pressures and a projected $10 million to create a “Wyoming wildfire liability self-insurance reserve fund.” 

For the average residential customer, the proposed hike pencils out to a monthly base rate increase from $23 to $25, according to the company. Base rate is a service charge, meaning customers will see an increase regardless of how much power they use. 

Customer classification rate increases for various “large” electrical-demand users, excluding irrigated agriculture, range from 7.4% to 10.9%, according to public documents. 

“The recommended cost of service study incorporated in this case fairly allocates costs among the service schedules in a manner that reflects the demands and energy usage of the customer classes,” Rocky Mountain Power states in documents provided to the state. Irrigation customers account for about 0.4% of total energy usage on Rocky Mountain Power’s system in Wyoming.

When pressed for details about what’s driving the proposed 37.7% rate increase for ag irrigation, Rocky Mountain Power pointed to a 638-page document filed with the Public Service Commission. 

“The company proposes a rate design that makes movement towards [cost of service] while balancing impacts to individual customers,” according to one passage regarding the Section 40 classification.

“Rates for the various customer classes should cover the cost of providing service,” Rocky Mountain Power spokesperson David Eskelsen told WyoFile via email. “Different kinds of customers present different costs, such as the magnitude and characteristics of their demand on the electric system, voltage requirements and line extension costs.

“As the company has measured usage during peak periods by irrigation customers, their use of the system increased 30% compared to the 2024 general rate review, which contributes to the need for the above-average increase in rates,” Eskelsen added. “Combined with the smaller increases for this class in the past two general rate reviews, the increase proposed is necessary to move them closer to actual cost of service.”

Beyond a customer’s demand on a utility’s system, other factors define distinct customer classifications. Among them are voltage requirements. While the average home requires 120 and 240 volts, large irrigation pumps can require 480 volts.

If costs to reliably serve high-voltage power to irrigation customers are rising, it hasn’t been fully explained to them, Thornock and Teichert say. Plus, the service they’re paying for hasn’t been reliable.

“Rocky Mountain Power sends us dirty power,” Teichert said, describing power currents that send fluctuating, rather than stable, currents of voltage. He added that their irrigation pumps and motors require a consistent 480 volts. But, “it fluctuates all day long.”

The variation of voltage is problematic, Thornock said, because it can cause pumps to malfunction. “I had to replace a pump-motor yesterday — probably a $10,000 motor — because of dirty power.”

Equally perplexing, Thornock and Teichert said, is this the first time in recent history that Rocky Mountain Power has singled out agricultural irrigation for a major rate hike. In 2023, the state allowed a 1.5% increase, and in 2024 it ordered a 2.9% reduction.

No relief

Two years ago, Teichert and Thornock rang alarm bells about the threat of rising electrical costs to the agriculture industry. They concluded that a personal investment in solar arrays might help — if only the Legislature would raise the cap on net metering from 25 kilowatts of self-generation to 200 kilowatts.

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