If you are an Avista customer in Washington or Idaho, you will see a decrease in your natural gas rates starting today, March 1. The wholesale cost of natural gas is a major driver in the price you pay per month for gas. The cost of natural gas makes up about 65 percent of your bill. This cost is passed through directly to you without mark up.
With the new lower rates now in effect, a residential customer in Washington using an average of 67 therms per month will see a decrease of $3.90, or 6.0 percent, for a revised monthly bill of $60.73. An Idaho residential customer using an average of 62 therms per month will see a $3.46, or 5.7 percent, decrease for a revised monthly bill of $57.50. Avista has approximately 149,000 natural gas customers in Washington and 76,000 in Idaho.
The utility commissions in both states quickly approved Avista’s Feb. 13 requests to lower natural gas rates because of declining wholesale prices. This request is called a Purchased Gas Cost Adjustment (PGA). The PGA approval is good news for you, so we wanted to pass these price decreases on to you as quickly as we could.
PGA filings are typically made once a year in the fall to balance the cost of wholesale natural gas purchased by Avista to serve you. Given the decline in wholesale natural gas prices, Avista proposed to decrease the natural gas rates our customers pay to better reflect current market prices for natural gas.