The commission will hold a public meeting June 29, 2006 at 6:30 p.m at Renton City Hall on on Puget Sound Energy's (PSE's) proposed general rate increase for electricity and natural gas customer. (See our press release for more information.) Under the company's proposal, electricity revenues would increase 9.2 percent ($148.8 million) and gas revenues by 5.3 percent ($51.3 million).

This general rate increase is in addition to a power-cost increase filed by PSE in May, 2006. According to the UTC staff's preliminary analysis of the general rate case, the average residential electric customer would see an increase of $7.75 per month and the average residential natural gas customer would see an increase of $4.94 per month.

PSE serves just over 1,000,000 electric customers in the King, Kitsap, Thurston, Island, Skagit, Whatcom, Pierce, Kittitas and Jefferson counties, and 678,000 natural gas customers in King, Lewis, Pierce, Snohomish, Thurston and Kittitas counties. Customers can comment on PSE's proposal through our comments page: http://www.wutc.wa.gov/comment.

According to the company, factors driving the proposed increases include customer growth, higher power costs, investments to maintain and replace aging infrastructure, and a need for good credit ratings and capital market access.

PSE's rate case includes a variety of issues that must be considered by the commission, including:

• Investments in wind power facilities
• Revisions to the Power Cost Adjustment program previously approved by the commission.
• New conservation pilot programs.
• An electric conservation incentive mechanism
• Accounting for gas and electric infrastructure investment.