I am a real customer of Avista. I used to be a customer of Inland Power. I have stated before here on this forum that if Inland was my power company, I would be spending almost 50% less than what I spend with Avista. I would like to challenge you to go to Inland Powers website. It is at http://www.inlandpower.com Click on the energy matters tab at the top—choose residential rates. On the residential rates page you will see single phase, three phase and kwh charge. Single phase and three phase is simply the facilities use charge that Inland charges each customer. What phase you are charged for depends on what kind of meter you have, whether it is a single phase meter or three phase meter. Since you wouldn’t know, to be fair use the three phase charge. Now, find the kwh usage on your Avista bill and multiply it by Inland’s flat rate of .0521 cents. Add your kwh charge to the amount for the three phase. The end result is how much Inland would charge you if you were their customer. Do you notice a difference in the amount of your bill??

Another blogger here also pointed out a comment that Avista made that I am sure a lot of folks forgot about. Avista did say that one of the reasons they were raising rates was not because customers were using more but because customers were using less and so they were losing money and wanted to keep their profit margin. So, they raised rates on us. This makes me angry. A customer can’t win if Avista is just going to raise rates each time you try to use less. Where is the reward in saving money and conserving if Avista is going to raise rates because they don’t want to lose their big profits?? My hubby and I put a wood stove in our home last month. We cut our usage in half as a result. Our kwh usage in January was 7480 kwh. Our kwh usage in February was 3700 kwh. Same average temps. Do you know what kind of a reward I got for that? Avista charged me more for each kwh I used than what they did the month before! I call foul. Inland Power is able to charge less. I want transparency from Avista. Why do they need so much more than Inland Power does?? Why does their energy cost so much more than Inland Power?? Natural gas prices have gone down, electricity prices have gone down—why is Avista charging so much when energy prices are down not up? And why do they insist on giving rate increases 3 or 4 times a year??? I have counted them and yes, that is how many they are asking for each year. I can count on 1 finger how many times Inland raised rates while I was their customer.

So, when you stick up for Avista, consider all of the questions I put above that Avista is not giving me or any other customers any real answers for!

Providing the basic necessities of life must not be placed in the hands of simple profiteers and ethical incompetents.

You have received some very good analysis of how Avista manipulates the figures and channels the dollars. It is a goliath, intertwined with government and special interests to perpetuate their own goals. Avista is a not so micro microcosm of what is ruining the economy and running the only resource America has – its citizens – into the ground.

Regarding putting the “blame” for high electric bills on the the consumer based on how much electricity they use; what about the requested rate increase Avista petitioned stating that they were making less revenue because consumers were using less electricity?

What does it take to start another source of electricity for people within the city limits? If Avista had some local competition they might modify their rates and customer service.

I suggest that if this ever happens again that people go to their meter and get the reading. Then call Avista and ask then what figure (the running number on your meter) they used to estimate your bill. If their figure doesn’t compare to yours then tell them what the correct reading currently is and have them correct your bill based on the actual reading vs. the “estimated” one they had used. A similar thing happened to me with Inland right after moving into my house. They billed me for an estimate based on what the previous homeowner had used at that time of the yr. It was twice what we had actually used so I called and told them my meter’s correct reading and they credited my bill. Fortunately, they only use one rate.

On a bill that flashed on the TV, I noticed Avista’s rate tiers went from a low of .06543 to a high of .09323 per kWh. I believe that even the low end of that tier is about 20-25% higher than many other pwr companies around Spokane and the highest tier looks to be about 70-80% higher. The overall avg for someone’s bill who falls into the 3rd-4th tier rates (during winter usage) appears to be approximately 50% higher than many other local pwr co’s would charge…

McKay- Overall, good job on your story. Your comparison to other cities needs a little more detail though because the cost to the energy company of producing the pwr needs to be taken into account. Comparing a city that gets its pwr primarily from hydroelectric to one that is powered by coal plants is like apples to oranges because it’s much cheaper to produce hydro vs. coal. Coal also has the added costs associated with environmental compliances, etc. Therefore, to get an accurate comparison, you need to compare how much the pwr co’s are charging per kWh “above” what it costs them to make the kWh. A few people (I said “a few”)probably looked at their bill and forgot to take into account a previous unpaid balance but I’m sure you already took that into account so it should be a non-factor anyway.

Link to Associated Press story: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hf4biXVXa0S1cp3ZiInWtYdzb0YQD96OT7L00