Questions and answers about your electric rates
About 65%. Whenever Bonneville raises its wholesale power rates, it can have
a big impact on EWEB's costs and on customers' electric bills.
EWEB's elected board of commissioners has a policy of "passing through"
to customers any increase or decrease in BPA wholesale power costs.
The impact of BPA rate changes varies according to each utility's power-purchase
contract with the federal agency. This is because BPA has different types of power
contracts. Some utilities buy power in large blocks, while others have contracts
that allow them to purchase a percentage of the output of the Columbia River hydroelectric
system. Sometimes BPA raises the price of one type of power it sells and lowers
the price of another, at the same time. That helps explain why one public utility
may announce a 5 percent rate increase, while another utility may only raise rates
by 1 or 2 percent, or not at all.
Three primary factors drove the November 2011 electric rate increase:
- The additional charges partially offset wholesale energy cost increases by the Bonneville Power
Administration. Bonneville, which supplies EWEB with about 65% of its electricity needs, increased
its wholesale rates this fall for its utility customers in the Northwest. EWEB commissioners have
a general policy of passing on to customers any increase or decrease in Bonneville power costs.
- EWEB is receiving less energy from Bonneville under a new contract that went into
effect Oct. 1, 2011. Reduced power supply from Bonneville decreases the amount of energy EWEB is able
to sell on the wholesale market, which will reduce revenues. Revenues from those wholesale power
sales are used to keep customer rates lower.
- Other power market factors, such as recession-related low wholesale power prices
that have reduced available revenues, also are contributing to the rate increase.
