Why your electric bill may soon be higher in Benton County

The Benton PUD is considering raising residential electricity rates by 2.5% starting April 1, increasing the average monthly household bill from $121 to $124.

The increase would be tied to the PUD’s demand surcharge, or the fee for the highest one-hour electricity use during peak hours each month.

The increase comes after the Bonneville Power Administration raised its wholesale electricity rates by an average of nearly 9% and its transmission rates by an average of about 20% on Oct. 1.

The demand surcharge is intended to create an incentive for PUD customers to shift some of their electricity use to hours when there is less demand for electricity. For instance, they could choose to program their home charging of electric vehicles for late at night or do laundry on weekends or non-peak weekday times.

Aggressive clean energy laws are beginning to put a premium on the cost of supplying electricity during the hours of the day when customer demand is highest. In addition, the PUD has to invest in equipment and wires required to avoid overloading local electric delivery systems during high customer usage periods.

Benton PUD serves more than 55,000 customers in Kennewick, Finley, Benton City, Prosser and outlying areas.

The Benton Public Utility District spends more than half of its entire budget on BPA power costs.

Benton PUD will use cash reserves and low-interest debt to keep the rate increase smaller than would otherwise be needed, it said in a notice to customers.

Residential customer bills include charges in three categories.

Under the rate change proposal, the system cost is proposed to remain at 66 cents per day, and the proposed charge for electricity used would remain at just over seven cents per kilowatt-hour.

However, the demand surcharge is proposed to increase next year starting in April. It would increase from $1 .05 per kilowatt-hour to $1.54 per kilowatt-hour for the one hour of peak use per billing period.

Rates in several nonresidential categories — small general service; irrigation; streetlights; and unmetered security lights — also would increase under the proposal.

Benton PUD will hold a public hearing on the proposed rate change at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, at the Benton PUD Auditorium, 2721 W. 10th Ave., Kennewick.

For those who don’t want to attend in person, a telephone line will be available at 323-553-2644 with conference ID 647 406 974# and internet participation will be available through Microsoft Teams. Information on how to join the meeting by internet is posted at bit.ly/47w46ck.

Residential rate history

The proposed rate increase follows a 5% Benton PUD rate increase that took effect in April this year.

Before that there had been no rate increases for more than five years, with average monthly residential bills of about $115.

However, in fall 2023 the Benton PUD did change its rate structure in a way planned to keep residential bills at the same cost.

It decreased the charge for total electricity used, but added a surcharge based on the hour with the highest use of electricity during the PUD’s hours of highest demand for electricity.

Those times are 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays from October through April and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays from May through September. Federal holidays are excluded.