Increasing prices for electricity and water will be passed on to Kaysville customers starting in May.

Electricity prices have cost Kaysville Power $1 million more than budgeted over the past year, and water prices have cost the city about $80,000. The City Council voted Tuesday to make up that difference by passing that cost along to customers.

The average residential customer will now pay between $90 and $110 more a year for electricity and about $12 more per month for water, said Dean Storey, the city's finance director.

"As newer homes are being built, we're seeing the residential load increase during the summer months," Storey said. "As they require more electricity, we, of course, have to go buy more."

Most of that load on the power system comes from air conditioners.

The last electricity rate increase in Kaysville was in 2002, when the city began charging a flat rate of 8.4 cents per kilowatt-hour. The new flat rate will be 9 cents per kilowatt-hour, Storey said. But if users go above 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month, they will be charged 10.85 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Kaysville residents aren't the only ones being hit by increasing power costs. In December, Rocky Mountain Power, which delivers electricity to most Utahns, increased its rates by about $6 a month for a household using 753 kilowatt-hours.

The first phase went into effect Dec. 11, and the next phase will take effect June 1.

That increase is expected to net Rocky Mountain Power $115 million to pay for two gas-fired power plants: one in Mona, Juab County, and the other in Vineyard, Utah County.

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com