Wyoming OKs Rocky Mountain Power rate hike, tapping customers for another $85.5 million

Thousands of Rocky Mountain Power residential customers will see their monthly electric bills jump by about $14 beginning in June. 

The Wyoming Public Service Commission approved the rate hike Tuesday, the latest in a series of increases by a company that has pointed to fossil fuel market volatility, skyrocketing insurance for wildfire liability and major investments in renewable energy for the rising costs.

The three-member commission voted unanimously to accept a settlement agreement struck between Rocky Mountain Power, its largest industrial customers in the state and the Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate. The deal reduced the utility’s original request for a $123.5 million increase, or 14.7%, to an increase of about $85.5 million, or 10.2%.

Those figures could change slightly, based on a handful of minor stipulations to the agreement. The commission’s final order will be issued in a few weeks, potentially changing some calculations.

Commissioners acknowledged that, although they don’t like to see continuing rate hikes, the company is essentially responding to rapidly changing market forces, as well as diverging federal and regional policies that drive up the utility’s costs and ultimately impact customer rates.

Affordability, Commissioner Mary Throne said, “is a challenge — and it’s a challenge across the [electric utility] sector. I think it’s time we have sort of a global discussion about affordability and bring in the relevant stakeholders.”

Because Rocky Mountain Power is part of PacifiCorp’s larger, six-state service region, the utility must comply with renewable energy requirements that many in Wyoming regard as “unwise,” according to Commission Deputy Chairman Chris Petrie.

“I think many of those [Rocky Mountain Power and PacifiCorp] decisions represent the utility’s best effort to continue to provide the required service and to control their costs, as best they can, while complying with other pressures exerted on them,” Petrie said. “We certainly have to acknowledge that there have been significant rate increases that are welcomed by nobody.”

The utility’s customers also experienced a 5.5% general rate increase in January 2024, as well as a pair of temporary upward fuel cost adjustments over the past two years. 

Unresolved issues

Commissioners agreed that the approved rate hike settlement, even with their added stipulations, likely won’t forestall the utility asking for yet another rate increase in the near future.

Before the company makes another request, however, the panel encouraged it to make good on a promise to “workshop” those issues with stakeholders, including the Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate and the Wyoming Industrial Energy Consumers group — the intervening parties that hashed out the settlement agreement with Rocky Mountain Power.

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For example, Rocky Mountain Power and its parent company PacifiCorp have relied for years on a “multi-state protocol” group of stakeholders to hash out how to divide systemwide expenses and infrastructure investments among the six states where PacifiCorp operates. But under pressure from some states, PacifiCorp has signaled its intent to possibly dump the multi-state protocol process and replace it with a more piecemeal approach.

In fact, PacifiCorp has contemplated a “corporate realignment,” or breakup, in an effort to better respond to pro-fossil fuel policies favored in states like Wyoming and Utah and cleaner energy policy demands in states like California, Oregon and Washington.

Another matter to “workshop” is increasingly expensive wildfire liability insurance and litigation costs and how to fairly plan for those expenses, according to the commission.