Seattle City Light bills to rise 2.3 percent

Seattle City Light customers will see their monthly power bills bump up by 2.3 percent this fall due to a boost in the price of wholesale power provided by the Bonneville Power Administration.

Seattle City Light residential customers will pay an average of $1.06 a month more once the increase takes effect in October.

"By ordinance, for us, this is an automatic pass through," said Scott Thomsen, a Seattle City Light spokesman.

BPA markets power from a network of 31 dams and one nuclear-power plant, and supplies more than a third of the power consumed in the Northwest. On Tuesday, the BPA announced a 7 percent increase in wholesale power rates — the first such increase since 2002 — that would take effect Oct 1.

The wholesale price increase was triggered by a mix of rising costs and declining revenue, said Katie Pruder, a BPA spokeswoman.

BPA provides electricity to more than 140 utilities across the Northwest. Generally, the more a utility depends on BPA power, the greater the expected rate increase to its customers.

Snohomish PUD depends on BPA for most of its power, but a spokesman could not be reached Tuesday for comment about the rate increase.

BPA also affects the rates of Puget Sound Energy, a private utility, through a credit that allows private utility customers to share in the benefits of public power, said Dorothy Bracken, a PSE spokeswoman. It was unclear Tuesday what impact, if any, BPA's rate increase would have on the utility, Bracken said.

BPA officials say the agency has cut costs, and that the rate increases are substantially less than forecast earlier in the year.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com