Commerical Rates

The residential rate per kilowatt-hour (kWh) at $0.0739 will remain the same.  The Daily System Charge of 62 cents per day will increase to 63 cents per day.  

Here are the impacts based on a 30 day month:
 
New daily system charge:                   $18.90
Previous daily system charge:            $18.60
Increase:                                              $ 3.00
               
The average monthly bill will increase from approximately $116 to $119. 

The major driver of the rate increase is rising power costs due to the following:

• Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is increasing rates charged to customer utilities on October 1, 2019.  BPA is the major provider of power and transmission services to public utilities in the Northwest.
• An increase in the requirement under the Energy Independence Act (passed in 2006) to purchase renewable resources. Effective January 1, 2020, that requirement increases from 9% to 15% which requires Benton PUD to acquire additional renewable energy that adds to overall power costs.
• Power costs are projected to be up approximately $4 million in 2019 primarily resulting from a combination of two factors:  1) a much lower than average water year which reduces energy production from Benton PUD’s share of the Northwest hydroelectric system, and 2) extreme weather throughout the Northwest in February and March causing most Northwest utilities to purchase more energy at significantly higher market prices.

Benton PUD’s last overall revenue increase was 4.9% in September 2016. 

The kilowatt-hour rate will remain the same.  The Daily System Charge is billed at the old rate for usage incurred in September and the new rate for usage incurred in October.

Street lights and security lights are not able to be prorated for billing periods that span October 1, 2017.  For these rate classes, the rate change will be applied to billing periods that begin on or after October 1, 2017.

The daily system charge is the rate component designed to recover certain fixed costs involved in providing electricity to a home or business, including such things as maintaining substations, poles and lines, meters, issuing bills, and maintaining records.  There is a minimum level of infrastructure required to serve a customer.

The monthly demand charge is the rate component designed to recover fixed costs associated with sizing the system to handle the maximum amount of energy consumed at a moment in time.

The monthly energy charge is the rate component designed to recover variable power supply costs.  The monthly energy charge currently includes a portion of fixed costs.