The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) approved a $13 million one-time credit to the customers of Pacific Power & Light Company. The customer credit is the result of a settlement of a dispute over the revenues from the sale of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) between January 2009 and April 2011. These RECs are a product of the generation from Pacific Power & Light’s (Pacific Power) renewable resources, such as wind farms. The settlement resolves Pacific Power’s pending appeal of an earlier UTC decision addressing the appropriate ratemaking treatment of these revenues.

For an average residential electric customer, this will amount to a one-time credit of about $45. The credit will appear on electric bills starting June 20.

The parties signing the settlement are the commission, Pacific Power, and the Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities. The other party, the Public Counsel Section of the Attorney General’s Office, did not oppose the settlement.

The UTC regulates the rates and services of telecommunications companies, investor-owned electric utilities, natural gas and water companies, garbage-collection haulers, household-goods movers and charter-bus companies, commercial ferries, pipeline companies, and a low-level radioactive waste repository.