Avista

Avista Utilities

Type	Public
Traded as	: AVA S&P 600 Component
Industry	Energy, private utility
Founded	1889, 128 years ago (as Washington Water Power)
Headquarters	Spokane, Washington
Key people	Scott Morris Chairman and CEO
Products	Electricity and natural gas
Revenue	US$ 1.473 billion
Number of employees	1,550 utility only
Website	AvistaUtilities.com

Avista Utilities is a U.S. energy company. Avista generates and transmits electricity and distributes natural gas, while providing energy solutions for residential, commercial, and industrial customers. Approximately 1,550 employees provides electricity, natural gas, and other energy services to 359,000 electric and 320,000 natural gas customers in three western states. The service territory covers 30,000 square miles (78,000 km²) in eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and parts of southern and eastern Oregon, with a population of 1.5 million.

Avista Utilities is the regulated business unit of Avista Corp., an investor-owned corporation headquartered in Spokane, Washington. Avista Corp.'s primary, non-utility subsidiary was Ecova, an energy and sustainability management company with over 700 expense management customers, representing more than 600,000 sites. In 2014 Ecova was sold to , a subsidiary of GDF Suez.

The company was founded in 1889 as Washington Water Power Company, until the board of directors approved a name change to Avista Corporation, effective January 1, 1999.

At that time, the company also bought naming rights for Spokane's minor league baseball park, Avista Stadium.

Washington Water Power was founded in 1889 helping the new and booming city of Spokane Falls to have more power. Using the Spokane River, the idea was that the town could use water power. Trustees of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company asked for people to back them up in their project from New York to build a power station on the river. The people in New York refused saying that water power had little to no value. 10 stockholders took up the project themselves, defying the people in New York, and founded the company of Washington Water Power.

Washington Water Power expanded in Oregon and into California by acquiring the natural gas operations of CP National from Alltel in 1989. The California operations were sold to Southwest Gas in 2005.