By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
Rocky Mountain Power Customers will soon see rate changes. However, they are significantly less than what the company was looking to implement. In the Friday, April 25 meeting of the Utah Public Service Commission, the body approved a 4.7% increase in electricity rates, with the average family seeing a $4.31 monthly increase to their bill.
“I think there’s two themes to this case. They are that the commission wants to make sure that Utahns aren’t paying expenses that need to be borne by other states’ customers, and that Utahns should not be paying for imprudent actions by the utility,” said Chris Parker, director of the Utah Division of Public Utilities.
In August 2024, Rocky Mountain Power proposed a 30.5% rate increase, a move that drew condemnation from state leaders. “The proposed rate increase from Rocky Mountain Power would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous,” said Gov. Spencer Cox following the initial proposition. The proposal is completely unacceptable and completely calls into question the management at Rocky Mountain Power.”
RMP President Dick Garish defended these proposed changes in a statement, “Everybody is facing increased costs, and there’s different drivers for that,” he said. “We are going through a challenge right now with wildfire and trying to figure out how to manage that with our communities and partnering with our communities to do that. But we care about our customers. We want to provide the service, and we want to do it well, and we’re not trying to punish our customers in any way possible.”
The company eventually relented, lowering its proposal to 18.1%.
The order put in place by the PSC laid out the reasoning for its decision,” PacifiCorp paid $550 million in dividends to its parent company after it became aware of potential wildfire liability … It is unreasonable to expect RMP’s ratepayers in Utah to pay higher rates because of the wildfires in Oregon and the depletion of cash reserves by these dividend payments.”
In the document, the commission states the requested 18.1% increase is “unprecedented” in both price and what it aimed to address.
The order also increases funding for the low-income credit on electricity bills,” the PSC, on its own initiative, approves an increase in the low-income Lifeline assistance credit from $13.95 to $18.00 a month.”
“We are determining its implications and our next steps in meeting our responsibility to provide electric service to our customers,” said Rocky Mountain Power spokesperson David Eskelsen in a statement.
Legal action has been taken before due to partial rate change denials. In 2024, Pacificorp – the parent company of Rocky Mountain Power – sued Wyoming over approving only a partial rate increase.
The ordered increase was immediately put into effect following the commission’s order.