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Questions and answers about your electric rates

How much of our power comes from the Bonneville Power Administration?
About 70 percent. Whenever Bonneville raises its wholesale power rates, it can have a big impact on EWEB’s costs and on customers’ electric bills.

How do BPA rate changes affect my monthly bill?
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.

Will my electric rates change in 2008?
EWEB Commissioners approved a 1.8 percent decrease in electric rates, which will be reflected in customers' May bills. The decrease primarily is due to a one-time wholesale power cost adjustment from the federal Bonneville Power Administration.

This is the fourth time since 2005 that EWEB has decreased electric rates, by a total decline of about 6 percent. Combined with one electric rate increase in 2006, electricity costs have been stable since 2004.