Benton PUD Auditorium
2721 W 10th Ave., Kennewick, Wa
 

Benton PUD is proposing a 5% retail rate increase effective April 1, 2025. This would be the first rate increase since 2019. Through prudent financial planning, including strategically using excess cash reserves and issuing municipal bonds periodically to fund our capital programs, we have been able to operate for over five years without implementing a retail rate increase (the Consumer Price Index has increased approximately 20% since 2019).

For an average residential customer, the proposed increase will result in an increase of about $6.00 per month, from $115 to $121. The median monthly residential bill for comparable Northwest utilities is $136.

The residential daily system charge is proposed to increase from 63 cents per day to 66 cents per day, the demand charge is proposed to increase from $1.00 per kW to $1.05 per kW, and the residential kilowatt-hour (kWh) rate is proposed to increase from $0.0688 to $0.0722. 

For other customer classes, the proposed 5% increase will apply to all rate components including daily system charge, kilowatt-hour rate, and demand charge (where applicable).

The primary drivers for the proposed rate increase are rising costs of materials, labor, and power supply.  Benton PUD has seen increases of 200% or more since the last retail rate increase for many of the types of standard equipment necessary to operate and maintain our system.

In addition, Benton PUD’s wholesale electric supplier, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is proposing a 9.8% rate increase for power generation and a 21% rate increase for transmission beginning October 2025 due to rising costs of materials and labor as well as the need for critical maintenance and upgrades. BPA will make its final decision later this summer regarding their rate increases. The cost for BPA power represents over 50% of Benton PUD’s total budget in a typical year, which means an increase in power costs has a direct and significant impact on our retail rates. Benton PUD expects BPA’s rates will continue an upward trend for the foreseeable future which unfortunately will lead to additional retail rate increases over the next several years.