LONGVIEW — Cowlitz PUD staff are recommending no residential power rate increase for the second year in a row, a decision that will ultimately be up to agency’s commissioners when they adopt next year’s budget in September.
If the utility dodges a rate hike, it will be largely due to the Bonneville Power Administration’s announcement in July that it will not increase its wholesale power rates for fiscal years 2020-2021. The Cowlitz PUD buys 80 percent to 90 percent of its power from the BPA, so BPA rate hikes typically force the PUD to boost local retail rates. BPA is the region’s largest marketer of wholesale power, which it mainly gets from federal hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin.
Staff delivered the no-rate-hike recommendation in a meeting with the three commissioners on Tuesday. The board will decide on the final budget Sept. 10.
The utility raised power costs a handful of times earlier in the decade to pay for capital improvements and to cushion rising BPA rates. But Bonneville rate increases have been slowing since 2013 and the PUD has made steady progress on paying off debt.