Salt River Project customers will see the effect of a 2.4% price increase in this month’s billing cycle.

The change was approved earlier this year by the SRP board of directors to support “ongoing reliability, expand low-income bill assistance and provide super off-peak pricing that takes advantage of abundant low-cost utility scale solar,” officials of the Tempe-based utility stated in a release.

The 2.4% hike reflects an increase of $169 million in base revenue to support upgrades to the electric system and meet the cost of customer programs, among other things, according to the release.

It will be offset somewhat by a decrease of $68.7 million in fuel and purchased-power expenses. 

The average residential customer using 1,117 kilowatt-hours  a month will see a monthly bill increase of 3.5 percent, or $5.61. Actual bill prices will vary based on customer use and price plan.

SRP will also implement tiered residential monthly service charges for non-solar and solar customers based on dwelling type to better recover the fixed costs of serving customers, which include customer service, billing and connection to the grid. The average residential bill impact accounts for the change in the monthly service charge, SRP officials said. 

Commercial and industrial customers will experience an average bill increase of 1.3 percent. Actual bill impacts vary based on the amount of energy used and when it is used.