Are electricity rate increases fair to customers?

Beat Check with The Oregonian

Many homeowners in Oregon are feeling the impacts of higher electricity bills and facing the prospect of yet another rate increase next year. As electricity bills have skyrocketed, causing widespread anger and frustration, many people have begun to question how and why utilities recoup money from their customers.

Last month, the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, a state nonprofit group that advocates for those customers, asked Oregon regulators to dismiss Portland General Electric’s newest rate increase proposal – an unprecedented move that diverges from the state’s standard rate-setting process. Since then, the case has generated well over 1,000 comments from frustrated PGE customers.

They raise important questions: Are back-to-back rate increases fair? Why should customers bear all of the cost of infrastructure upgrades and other investments and not the utility and its shareholders? Does the clean energy transition translate into higher rates? And if clean energy is supposedly cheaper than fossil fuel-powered energy, why are rates going up exponentially?

Dain Nestel, the Director of Customer Solutions at Portland General Electric, talked on Beat Check about the reasons for the steep increases and how the company is trying to reign in costs and help its customers in an era of increasing electricity demand, extreme weather and aging infrastructure.

For a different perspective, Beat Check previously hosted Bob Jenks, the executive director of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, to address those issues from utility customers’ perspective.

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