July 28, 2011 in Business, Idaho

Avista wants to decrease Idaho electric rates

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Avista Utilities has asked Idaho regulators to lower the bills of electric customers in that state as part of an annual “power cost adjustment” process.

If the Idaho Public Utilities Commission approves the request, the typical residential customer in Idaho would see a 5.25 percent reduction on their monthly bill, or $4.40, the company said Thursday in a news release. Avista has more than 122,000 electric customers in Idaho.

The power cost adjustment process seeks to make up the difference between Avista’s cost of generating and buying electric power and the cost reflected in its rates, the release said. The requested reduction would shave company revenue by $15.4 million for the 12 months ending June 30, 2012, but wouldn’t affect earnings, Avista said.

A copy of the rate application is available at www.puc.idaho.gov.

The power cost adjustment process is separate from Avista’s general rate case in Idaho, in which the company is seeking a 3.7 percent rate hike for its electric customers. In addition, in October Idaho customers will see a 3.9 percent rate increase that’s part of a previous rate request, which regulators spread over three years to soften the impact.

Five comments on this story so far. Add yours!

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  lowtechmaster on July 28 at 7:59 p.m.

  why don’t they cut their rate request?

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  D Statler on July 28 at 9:20 p.m.

  AVISTA is continuously manipulating the PUC and WUTC in order to bring their guaranteed profit margin up. One needs to look no farther than the UTC website that blocks ratepayers from viewing these confidential conversations. These small rate decreases mean very little when AVISTA is guaranteed a premium over 10% for profits.They contiuously request these bumps in the guaranteed rate of return. AVISTA is a very calculating company that employs the best political action comittees and generously contributes to politicians that remember them when voting. I have also noticed AVISTA likes to employ public relations persons (IE: DAN) to try to justify these extremely greedy rates to us. Any of you get a return like that regardless of performance? When that is failing.They order up full page ads and very expensive advertising campaigns. I hate to keep hounding AVISTA,but they choose to keep hounding ratepayers. Idaho’s PUC appears to be more trust worthy than Washington’s UTC. It will be interesting to see how much longer AVISTA can get away with this type behavior.

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  Dan_at_Avista on July 29 at 11:18 a.m.

  Undooley, your facts are incorrect in your post. Avista is NOT in any way guaranteed a rate of return. It’s pretty simple – how could that possibly even happen? It’s not financially possible to make a guarantee. We are allowed a defined possible rate of return, but we still have to earn it and history has shown over the past five years or so we do not earn that 10.2% potential. You can certainly take issue with us and our actions, but please don’t keep using the “guaranteed” arguement, because it’s simply not true.

  Lowtechmaster, that’s a great question. We addressed it at the Avista blog yesterday because it is certainly confusing that we would file an increase one day and then a decrease another day. The simple answer is that your rates are made up of two components – base rates and other tariffs sometimes referred to as true-up tariffs. Base rates recover the company’s investment in generating and delivering energy to customers. True-up tariffs pass through certain costs that have no impact on the company’s earnings. The filings were for both components – one up, one down. More details here: http://www.avistautilities.com/community/blog/archive/2011/07/28/072811-2.aspx

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  D Statler on July 29 at 7:46 p.m.

  DEFINED possible rate = GUARANTEED rate, just spelled differently. I am sorry if the truth hurts Dan. So simple a Janitor can figure it out. What about your confidential corespondence between your lawyers and UTC? If AVISTA is so open and honest,Why the need for these transactions? Can we have a list published of your political contributions? How much of my utility bill pays for your feel good media campaign? I appreciate your answers,however tilted they might be. Most of the AVISTA / WWP employees I have met in the 50 years I have lived here are wonderful.I didn’t choose AVISTA as a service provider.I had no other option.I am bound by your monopoly. When is enough enough?

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  greyhound2 on July 30 at 7:56 a.m.

  Let’s see. Drop rates 5.2%, then raise rates 3.7% followed by another at 3.9%. How many Avista executives does it take to change a light bulb? It takes 9. One to change the bulb and eight to sing a song about how much they miss the old one.