Electricity and gas utility Avista has filed a request with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission that, if approved, will increase residential electric bills by 15.9% and natural gas bills by 6.5%.
An average residential customer using 977kWh hours of electricity per month will see a $10.70 per month increase for a revised monthly bill of $78.08. Other electrical customers will see an increase between 15.4% and 16.5%.
The average residential natural gas customer who uses 65 therms per month will reportedly see a $4.91 increase, for a revised monthly bill of $80.05.
Larger commercial natural gas customers will see no more than a 3.3% increase. The Idaho Public Utilities Commission generally has up to seven months to review a general rate case filing.
Avista noted that the requested electric rate increase is driven primarily by significant increases in fuel and purchased power costs to meet growing customer demand and by investments made to upgrade aging infrastructure to increase its capacity and reliability.