The Iowa Utilities Board has approved a 135-and-a-half million dollar rate increase for MidAmerican Energy customers. Rob Hillesland, a spokesman for the board, says regulators agreed to the increase due to a “wide range of factors,” including increased operating costs.
The increase is to be phased-in over three years, however last August the board gave MidAmerican the go-ahead to temporarily start boosting utility bills, by an average of about two-dollars-and-73 cents a month. Increases in years two and three will be in the same range.
MidAmerican, as part of the proposed settlement, will be promising not to raise rates again until 2018.
The board’s proposed settlement asks MidAmerican to ensure no residential customer sees an increase of more than 200-dollars a year on their utility bill. The cap for individual business customers would be 15-hundred dollars annually. Des Moines-based MidAmerican serves 640-thousand customers in Iowa.
