Does Rate Design Matter?

Think of it this way: your customers get one clear message from you every single month...their bill.  Its one of the most essential pieces of information your customers have about the utility and from their bill they will form opinions about the value of the service they receive.  The rate design is how you send that message.

Water Rates

Every community has different goals for what it wants its water rates to accomplish.  For some, it's conservation, for others it might be revenue stability or economic development.  Sometimes, it's all of these or more!  There is a rate design for every occasion, but the utility also needs some level of reliable and stable revenue.  Great rates strike a balance between community goals, and the utility's economic reality.

Wastewater Rates

In many cases, it is worth the time to develop a rate structure that recovers the costs of higher sewer treatment from those customers who discharge higher strength sewer loads to the system.  By doing so,  you can help protect your residential customers’ rates, keeping them low while the increased treatment costs are picked up by the commercial and industrial customers who are driving those costs in the first place.