Puget Sound Energy customers will see their electricity costs decrease a bit while natural gas costs climb slightly.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) recently approved PSE’s request this week to pass through natural gas costs that will result in a slight increase of nearly 2 percent, or about $1.50 for residential customers using 68 therms a month.

The commission took two additional actions that together will result in a small decrease in electricity rates for PSE customers over the next five months. The commission required that millions in proceeds from PSE’s sale of surplus renewable energy credits (RECs) to go back to electric customers. The UTC also required PSE to use the remaining portion of the REC proceeds to offset future rate requests.

In addition, the UTC authorized PSE to raise rates to offset a decrease in the federal power benefits passed through to PSE’s electric residential and small farm customers under the Bonneville Power Administration’s (BPA) Residential Exchange Program.

Added all together, the average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month will see his or her bill go down by 2.63 percent from November through March. A typical customer’s electric bill will decrease by $1.65, down from $99.68 to $98.03 a month. Changes in the Residential Exchange Program benefits are directly passed through in full to customers.