Скачать или смотреть Portland General Electric customers to see 17% increase in cost of utilities, here's why

Portland General Electric (PGE) residential customers will see a significant rate hike starting next year as the utility received approval for residential electricity cost increases of an estimated 17.2% starting in January 2024.

The utility company, which services 44% of Oregonians, requested a general rate hike of 14% in February.

That number ultimately went down slightly as PGE reached various settlements with residential and corporate utility boards. The 17% is a result of the sum of the general rate increase (for PGE's increased operating expenses) and the increase in the wholesale cost of power.

The Public Utility Commission held a public comment meeting in May where it heard from customers and consumer advocates that urged the governor-appointed three-member board to deny the increase.

"The proposed rate increase that PGE is suggesting would be disastrous for the low-income community in Portland. Low-income families are already struggling to make ends meet," said John Maddalena, the energy program manager for youth services nonprofit, Self Enhancement Inc. "Low-income families are more likely to live in older and poorly insulated homes. Those require a lot more energy to heat and cool. A rate increase like this would disproportionally impact these families."

The 17.2% is still an estimate. While most of the rate-increase case has been adjudicated already, PGE is still in the process of settling smaller portions of the case. Once those are finalized and once the wholesale cost of power is finalized, PGE will publish the final increase amount sometime in December.

Bob Jenks, director of the Citizen's Utility Board, said the residential consumer advocating agency, along with groups representing commercial and industrial interests, fought to stop PGE from handing roughly $34 million more costs off to consumers.

"The cuts were things like they had asked for a higher profit margin and ended up agreeing that they weren't going to get a higher profit margin. We got them to take a hit on the Biglow Wind Facility," he said referring to a windfarm in Biglow Canyon that saw a blade fall from one of the windmills in August of 2022. "We looked into it, concluded that it was because of poor maintenance practices and customers shouldn't pay for the cost of that."

Cost increases to residential consumers will be considerably more than the increase in cost to commercial and industrial consumers. Jenks said the main reason is that distribution costs, for example, getting power lines to properties, are considerably more for residential costumers than they are for commercial and industrial.

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