Portland General Electric announces significant 17% rate hike starting January 2024 - KATU
Portland General Electric announces significant 17% rate hike starting January 2024 | KATU
SALEM, Ore. — Portland General Electric (PGE) customers will see a 17 percent increase starting Jan. 1, 2024.
The decision was first announced in October. The rate of the increase was not decided until December by PGE and Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC) pending the final power supply forecast, officials say.
PGE and PUC officials claim the increase is due to multple factors such as the Faraday Resiliency and Repowering hydroelectric project, resilience and reliability upgrades in transmission and distribution systems, increased costs of the vegetation management program to help ensure the safety and reliability of the system, and inflation.
“The rate increase reflects the need to invest in the reliability and resiliency of PGE’s system, advance policy objectives like equity and clean energy, and the reality that PGE faces inflationary pressures and high market power prices,” said Megan Decker, PUC Chair. “We recognize how significant this rate increase will be for families and businesses, and we encourage them to seek out help with bills through energy efficiency and the rate discount program that has been expanded to better support Oregonians experiencing low incomes.”
Another contibuting factor is the PUC’s approval of an annual adjustment for power supply costs, which is a pass-through cost of PGE purchasing power to meet customer demand. Officials say this adjustment resulted in an increase in customer rates due to power costs rising sharply and increasing in volatility in the Western electricity market, accoridng to PUC.
The exact amount customer bills will increase differs based on customer type and energy usage. View the impact for each customer type below:
These include the approval of stipulated agreements among the parties on two major PGE rate filings – an annual adjustment for power supply costs and a general rate case filing - as well as other smaller filings submitted by PGE. These decisions, combined with the final power supply forecast, led to a high increase for PGE customers effective January 1, 2024.
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