One of Oregon’s largest electric companies wants to raise its rates next year.
Pacific Power has asked the Oregon Public Utility Commission to approve a 16.9% residential rate hike, effective next year. The company estimates that would raise the average bill of residential customers by about $30 per month.
The electric company says it’s trying to raise $304 million to pay for renewable power sources and invest in upgrades to the grid, and also to pay for costs associated with wildfires.
Wildfire expenses would include managing vegetation around power lines, as well as paying higher wildfire insurance premiums and creating what the company calls a “catastrophic fire fund.”
Related: Jury finds PacifiCorp owes more than $73 million for causing 2020 Oregon wildfires
Pacific Power’s parent company, PacifiCorp, is facing multiple lawsuits over its role in Southern Oregon wildfires that destroyed 170 homes in 2020. It’s already agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle some of those lawsuits.
In regulatory filings, PacifiCorp has estimated that it could face $2.4 billion in wildfire-related losses.
Pacific Power has about 574,000 customers in the state, spread across a number of communities, including parts of North and Northeast Portland, much of Southern Oregon, and parts of the Willamette Valley, the coast, and Central and northeastern Oregon.
The state’s largest electric utility, Portland General Electric, has more than 875,000 customers. PGE raised its rates by 18% at the start of 2024.
Related: Portland General Electric hikes residential rates by record 18%