Puget Sound Energy customers could save as much as $10 million per year after a Thurston County judge reversed part of the Bellevue-based company’s rate plan.
The state’s oldest and largest investor-owned electric and natural gas utility has to propose a rate plan for approval from the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC).
The regulatory body approved PSE’s rate plan for 2013 – which included automatic rate increase for customers through 2017 at the company’s option – but it was challenged by customer advocates who worried rates could be unfairly calculated.
The state Attorney General’s Public Counsel Unit and the Industrial Customers of NW Utilities appealed UTC’s decision on behalf of customers.
“This is an important win for PSE’s ratepayers,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. “The court’s ruling will ensure that customers’ rates under the multiyear plan will be fairly calculated.”
Ferguson said the ruling could save residential and industrial customers as much as $10 million.
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Carol Murphy sent the plan back to the UTC to determine new rates, but denied a challenge that would have overturned automatic annual rate increases.
Kimberly Harris, PSE president and CEO, hosted a talk for the Puget Sound Business Journal’s Business
Journal Live series, where she spoke about making customers a priority for the company.
PSE this week received $3.8 million of a $14.3 million state grant for so-called “smart grid” technology intended to help state utilities better and more efficiently utilize solar and wind power.
Source: Puget Sound Business Journal. Ashley Stewart. 7/9/14
