A hearing for another double-digit rate increase for Rocky Mountain Power is coming before the Wyoming Public Service Commission on Tuesday, and it’s ringing some alarm bells with the AARP.
If a double-digit rate increase is approved, total rates since 2024 will have spiked more than 30%.
Rocky Mountain Power’s initial ask in the rate case sought an overall 14.7% adjustment to cover various costs, totaling $123.5 million for Wyoming. That would add $17 to an average residential rate payers’ bill per month, according to figures from Rocky Mountain Power.
A settlement agreement between Rocky Mountain Power, Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocates and Wyoming Industrial Energy Customers would take some of the edge off the increase, lowering the overall rate increase to 10.2% — an overall cost increase of $85.5 million for Wyoming — and an approved return on equity (ROE) of up to 9.65%.
A typical customer using 700 kilowatt hours would see a $14 increase, according to figures from Rocky Mountain Power.
The settlement would still have to be approved by the Wyoming Public Service Commission to go into effect.
If approved, the 10.2% overall rate increase follows an 8.3% increase to rates that went into effect January 2024 (minus a six-month period at 5.5% to refund a $9 million math error by Rocky Mountain Power) and an 11.9% adjustment that went into effect in July to cover rising fuel costs, a combined total of 20.2%.
That would make the effective rate increases since January 2024 at around 30.4% — a smidgen above the combined 29.2% that Rocky Mountain Power had sought in the 2023 rate filings that sparked a marathon, weeklong hearing.
Rocky Mountain Power is pursuing legal action over the rate increases that the Public Service Commission denied as part of that rate case, because company officials said the Public Service Commission’s decision dropped them below a federally required energy reserve.
They Just Keep Coming
AARP Wyoming’s State Director Sam Shumway represents senior citizens on a fixed income. That’s the constituency he believes will be most hurt by the continued march of electric utility rate increases.
“You look at a 14, almost 15% increase, and you say, ‘Well that’s $20 a month. That’s not much money,’” he said. “But for some of our folks, $20 a month means they can’t afford their medications, or they can’t pay for groceries. This really matters for them, and it’s why we get involved in these cases.”
Cost-of-living adjustments to social security incomes have not kept pace with inflation, Shumway said, so utility rate increases hit this demographic particularly hard. It doesn’t seem that the pressure will let up any time soon, with power-hungry AI computing centers on the horizon, and the continued struggle with inflation.
“It feels like they’re trying to wear consumers down, and that never feels very good,” Shumway said. “The history of this, they asked for like almost 30% (in 2023) … but so yeah, I think Rocky Mountain Power is just going to keep coming after it until they wear the Public Service Commission, or until they wear consumers, down.”
AARP Wyoming is circulating a petition against Rocky Mountain Power’s latest rate increase. It already has 2,500-plus signatures.
Shumway said he’s encouraging residents affected by the rate increase to attend and testify atTuesday’s 9 a.m. public hearing or send public comments to the Wyoming Public Service commission via email to wpsc_comments@wyo.gov.
What The Increases Are For
Rocky Mountain Power has said it needs the rate increase to cover a host of rising costs for the electric utility, which is a division of Pacific Corps.
“Drivers of the requested overall rate change include significant capital investments in transmission and renewable resources; increased Operations & Maintenance (O&M) expenses; and increased insurance costs due to wildfire risk,” according to the settlement filing.
Anthony Ornelas, with Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocates, told Cowboy State Daily his agency does support the stipulation, and will testify on its behalf on Tuesday.
“It’s a comprehensive package,” he said. “There’s compromise and give and take between all of the parties. And we believe if this is approved as a whole, it will result in a better outcome than we might have otherwise reached through a fully contested document.”
Representatives of Wyoming Industrial Energy Customers did not respond to a request for comment on the stipulation.
Rocky Mountain Power has said Wyoming’s rates are among the lowest in the nation, and that the capital investments the company is asking for will help keep Wyoming’s costs in that lower bracket.
What About Those Huge Data Centers?
Those capital investments include the Gateway South and Gateway West Segment projects, as well as Rock Creek I and II wind projects.
Shumway said that’s something he intends to question at the rate hearing.
“Who should be responsible for these investments, transmission lines, whether that benefits Wyoming consumers,” Shumway said.
He also has questions about what he feels is an overly high return on equity.
“They come in asking for 30% and end up getting 5.5% and they’re still making money,” Shumway said. “How does that work? You’d think they’d need at least 20% plus to continue even operating.”
That, Shumway added, isn’t meant to cast aspersions on Rocky Mountain Power, which he said is a good company that provides a great service to Wyoming customers, with some of the lowest rates in the region.
“But I think we need to be really thoughtful in how we approach things,” he said. “I mean we have some real challenges on the horizon with data centers, with AI and the processing. The energy consumption that’s going to be required to support the data that these artificial intelligence processors are going to require, how are we going to account for that?”
Shumway is particularly worried for his constituency, which are already struggling to keep up with back-to-back, double-digit rate increases.
“Some of these data centers use as much power as like all of northeastern Wyoming,” Shumway said. “I don’t feel like that can just be put on the backs of consumers.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
