BOISE, Idaho — Idaho Power implemented new increased power rates for all customers starting January 1st. Residential customers will see an average increase of $3.50 per month to their power bill.
"We are in kind of a unique situation as a utility and as a region, where we're just seeing this really strong growth," says Jordan Rodriguez, a Spokesperson for Idaho Power. Idaho Power requested a rate increase for all customers to help cover the costs associated with growth and infrastructure improvements.
"So the original request was for about $99 million, which comes out to about 7.3% average for all Idaho customers. That was what was in the original request. What the PUC approved is about $50 million, which comes out to about 3.7%," says Rodriguez.
It's too soon to say where new infrastructure is needed, but maintenance upgrades are planned.
"For at least the next four years we're planning to spend a billion dollars a year on infrastructure upgrades and that could be things like maintaining what we have as I said before, making it more reliable & more resilient, or adding new resources to meet the additional load," says Rodriguez.
The rate increase also impacts commercial customers and farmers, with percentage increases ranging from 3.38% to 4.84%.
"This is for recovering costs associated with infrastructure labor, for infrastructure [itself] that we're building, [and] existing [infrastructure], and what we call grid protection— hardening to make it more resilient. That's what all the money goes toward," Rodriguez said.
Idaho Power provides multiple programs to assist customers struggling to pay their power bills.
"The company does take affordability very seriously and we work really hard as a company to maintain that and to try to keep the rates as low as we can. There's certain realities that just have to be paid for just like with any business," says Rodriguez.
