Council Approves Reduced Development Charges
To encourage new business and employment, Colorado Springs City Council approved the reduction of development charges (tap fees) for large commercial construction. The move is already having it's desired effect.
See details in a recent newspaper article.
Approved 2012 Rate Changes
Our energy rates are among the lowest in Colorado and the nation. Our water rates are about average for Colorado Front Range cities even though Colorado Springs has to pipe most of its water all the way from the Continental Divide. Cities such as Denver and Pueblo have large rivers bringing water to their towns, making their cost to provide service lower than ours. Water continues to be a tremendous value in Colorado Springs: A gallon of water delivered right to your tap costs about one-half cent.
We offer several different rate classifications to help you maximize your business's operational performance. Our
business rate sheet (PDF) provides a summary of the most frequently used rate schedules. Detailed terms and conditions for all rate schedules are provided in our
tariffs.
Base rates vs. Cost adjustments
- Base rates reflect the costs associated with producing and delivering each service to customers. Base rates pay for the operation and maintenance of power plants, water collection and distribution, wastewater treatment, and more. The physical things you see, i.e. poles, wires, pipes, are financed through base rates.
- Cost adjustments only apply to electric and natural gas service. Because the national markets for natural gas and electricity are volatile and uncontrollable, we use cost adjustments to compensate for increases and decreases in coal, natural gas and electric market rates. Natural gas cost adjustments directly reflect the costs we are paying to serve our customers with natural gas for furnaces, water heaters, ovens and so forth. Because natural gas is a source of electric production, electric cost adjustments are also affected by fluctuations in natural gas costs. Changes to the cost adjustments, which can be made monthly, directly reflect costs that we are paying - we do not profit from increases to the adjustments.
http://www.csu.org/business/customer/Pages/2012businessrates.aspx