Avista asks for $4 surcharge on Idaho customers’ bills to address drop in sales from mild weather in 2016

Avista Utilities wants to add a $4 monthly surcharge to its Idaho customers’ bills, saying the mild winter of 2016 hurt the company’s power sales and revenues.

Electric and natural gas sales dropped during the “abnormally warm” winter, utility officials wrote in a filing with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. As a result, Avista didn’t collect enough revenue to cover the fixed costs of providing power to its Idaho customers. The shortfall was $9.6 million, the filing said.

A three-year pilot program adopted by the Idaho PUC last year allows Avista to request a surcharge when shortfalls occur, but it also requires the utility to give customer rebates for years when power sales exceed projections.

Washington has a similar program. Generating and delivering power are a significant part of utilities’ costs, and those fixed costs remain the same whether or not the utilities sell power. The surcharges help utilities recover fixed costs when power sales drop because of mild temperatures or energy conservation programs.

Avista asked for a similar surcharge in Washington last year, said Casey Fielder, an Avista spokeswoman. Both states cap the surcharge at 3 percent annually.

In Idaho, Avista is asking for a $2.56 monthly surcharge for a typical household using 910 kilowatt hours of electricity each month. For a typical natural gas customer using 61 therms per month, the surcharge would be $1.51.

Avista’s request will be reviewed by the Idaho PUC. Members of the public can weigh in through Aug. 31 at www.puc.idaho.gov.

The utility is asking for the electric surcharge to take effect Oct. 1 and the natural gas surcharge to take effect Nov. 1.