Avista Requests Natural Gas Rate Decrease for Oregon Customers in Annual Cost Adjustment Filings
Request reflects change in the wholesale cost of natural gas included in customer rates
Purchased Gas Cost Adjustment (
The first rate adjustment is Avista’s Purchased Gas Cost Adjustment (
This is the second reduction in natural gas commodity costs this year, with the first reduction approved in late January 2018. Since that filing, natural gas commodity costs have continued to remain low due to high production levels of natural gas and an abundance of natural gas in storage.
About 30 percent of an
Natural Gas Decoupling
The second rate adjustment is related to Avista’s natural gas decoupling mechanism. Decoupling is a mechanism designed to break the link between a utility’s revenues and customers’ energy usage. Avista’s actual revenue, based on therm sales, will vary, up or down, from the level included in a general rate case and approved by the Commission. This could be caused by changes in weather, energy conservation or the economy. Generally, under decoupling natural gas revenues are adjusted each month based on the number of customers, rather than therm sales. The difference between revenues based on sales and revenues based on the number of customers is surcharged or rebated to customers beginning in the following year.
If approved, Avista’s request is designed to decrease natural gas revenues by
Additional Filings
Three additional filings that were made relate to the amortization of prior demand side management programs, recovering costs associated with residential bank fees, and intervenor funding. If approved, the net impact of these three filings is a reduction of approximately
Customer Bills
If the five requests are approved,
The percentage change for natural gas customers varies by rate schedule and depends on how much energy a customer uses.
About
This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding the company’s current expectations. Forward-looking statements are all statements other than historical facts. Such statements speak only as of the date of the news release and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations. These risks and uncertainties include, in addition to those discussed herein, all of the factors discussed in the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended
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Source: Avista Corporation