The Snohomish County PUD Board of Commissioners recently approved a 2% general rate increase for all residential and commercial electric and water customers.

According to PUD news release issued Monday, the PUD board also approved a revised implementation of a base charge for electric customers, modifying the remaining deployment schedule from four years to two. The PUD’s base charge, which went into effect on April 1, 2022, was implemented to ensure more stable bills for customers and revenue for the PUD, helping it keep rates affordable and freeing up funds for energy-efficiency and income-qualified discount programs.

In December, the PUD’s board approved the 2023 budget for the electric, generation and water systems. The PUD’s 2023 budget for the electric system includes a 2% general rate increase, effective April 1. The rate hike will address higher material costs, inflationary pressure and supply chain challenges, while also funding investments in infrastructure and service modernization, the news release said.

“We are working hard to exercise prudent cost management and minimize the impacts to our customers,” said John Haarlow, Snohomish PUD CEO/GM. “We are continuing our intense focus on providing exceptional value to our customer/owners and our commitment to delivering safe, reliable and environmentally sustainable power.”

The rate increase and the revised schedule of the base charge will be implemented together. The base charge for medium-sized customers (most single-family homes) will increase from 10 cents per day to 34 cents, while the energy usage charge will decrease from 10.47 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to 10.14 cents/kWh. The result will be an average total increase of approximately $4/month.

For a complete look at how the base charge and energy usage charge will change for all residential customers, from small to extra-large, on April 1, visit snopud.com/ratestructure.

The PUD’s water system budget will rise from $14.7 million to $16 million in 2023, due in large part to a 7.9% rate increase from the City of Everett, which is where the PUD sources most of its water, and supply chain challenges driving increased costs. The water budget includes a 2.75% rate increase that will go into effect on March 1, 2023.

The PUD’s 2023 electric system budget came in at $697.9 million, an increase of approximately $27 million from 2022. The increase in the budget is mostly due to rising costs in operating and maintenance expenses.