IID maintaining higher prices during winter months

Imperial Irrigation District (IID) says after a long summer, it is trying to not overwhelm customers with high energy costs - 13 On Your Side's Vince Ybarra reports

IMPERIAL COUNTY, Calif. (KECY, KYMA) - Imperial Irrigation District (IID) is maintaining energy costs as we head into the winter months.

IID said it's going to maintain a reasonable cost for your energy, but it may be a little higher than you're used to. The rise on your bill comes as the energy company spent $75 million over the allotted budget this summer.

"This summer would have been 5 cents a kilowatt-hour, but that would have been simply unaffordable to our customers. So, we lowered that down to 2.8 [cents]," shares JB Hamby, Vice President of IID's Board of Directors.

Hamby said they planned for this summer back in January, hoping IID would not have to leave folks without power.

"In January, when we began the summer energy readiness plan, we wanted to be fully certain that we had enough energy and reserve energy available," clarifies Hamby.

IID was able to make sure locals didn't go without power. Hamby said IID hopes to get back on track and offer its lower prices sooner rather than later.

"We're putting together a plan in place that will ensure that we both have the reliability of customer's need at the lowest possible cost so we don't have any of these unforeseen costs like we had this summer," said Hamby.