AVISTA CORP

Utility Customer and Load Growth

We develop customer and load growth forecasts for the next five years. For 2024-2028, we expect electric and natural gas customer growth of approximately 1.3 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. Expected load growth for the same period is approximately 0.4 percent for both electric and natural gas. These forecasts incorporate the new building codes in Washington (see “Environmental Issues and Contingencies”).

In addition to Washington building code updates, emerging legislation with potential restrictions to new connections does create further uncertainty when forecasting natural gas customer and load growth, with additional potential impacts to our electric customer and load growth from resulting electrification efforts. See further discussion regarding regulations impacting our natural gas operations as included in “Environmental Issues and Contingencies”.

The forward-looking statements set forth above regarding retail load growth are based, in part, upon purchased economic forecasts and publicly available population and demographic studies. The expectations regarding retail load growth are also based upon various assumptions, including:

•

assumptions relating to weather and economic and competitive conditions,

•

internal analysis of company-specific data, such as energy consumption patterns,

•

internal business plans,

•

an assumption that we will incur no material loss of retail customers due to self-generation or retail wheeling, and

•

an assumption that demand for electricity and natural gas as a fuel for mobility will for now be immaterial.

Changes in actual experience can vary significantly from our projections.

See also “Competition” above for a discussion of competitive factors that could affect our results of operations in the future.