Rocky Mountain Power pitches rate hikes to lawmakers during special session

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Lawmakers heard from Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) about a proposed rate hike on electricity bills during Wednesday’s special session.

The company wants to raise those rates by over 30% by 2026, a span of just two years.

According to a filing back with the Utah Public Service Commission in June, RMP for an average overall customer increase of 2.31 cents per kilowatt hour and an average residential increase of 3.35 cents per kilowatt hour.

However, RMP has several levels of approval for that move — meaning that the state legislature would need to sign on.

The company made the case to a packed room at the public utilities committee hearing today.

Some Utahns made their opinions known at the State Capitol today.

“They’ll get phase one. Oh boy, it went up like 11% or something and then phase two comes along. It’s like a frog that’s in a pan of water and it’s getting a little hotter until we get fried by the utility,” Stanley Holmes, a resident against the increase, said to ABC4.

Rocky Mountain Power knows it’s a big ask, calling their rate increase request “significant.”

In previous coverage, ABC4.com has reported that the first “step” would hike residential rates by 1.93 cents per kilowatt hour starting on Feb. 23, 2025. The second “step” would bring a 1.42 cent per kilowatt hour hike on Jan. 1, 2026.

The plan has drawn sharp criticism from Gov. Spencer Cox.

“The proposed rate increase from Rocky Mountain Power would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous,” he put on X/Twitter on June 30.

The Republican governor called the proposal “unacceptable.”

“The audacity and lack of awareness with this request seriously calls into question management at RMP. I will do everything I can to make sure a rate increase of that magnitude never sees the light of day,” he said.

The company’s president, Dick Garlish, says it would be a nearly $24 increase over two years.

When broken down year over year, the hike would be ten dollars in the first year. The second year would be the steepest of the hikes, totaling $13 the second year.

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