It's the first of its kind in the Tri-Cities and the Yakima Valley. Benton PUD is offering a new Pay As You Go electricity plan that allows you to prepay for your wattage.

It allows you to choose when and how much electricity to buy on a prepaid basis, so you can make weekly or bi-weekly payments rather than an entire month's worth of electricity all at once.

The neat thing is that Pay As You Go is a voluntary program and all you have to do is go into the Kennewick or the Prosser location to sign up.

“It is a great option for customers who prefer to make smaller weekly or biweekly payments rather than paying for the entire months’ worth of electric usage all at once, said Christie McAloon, Manager of Customer Service.

You can sign up to receive notifications when your account reaches a low balance threshold. When you receive a notification, you can simply add more money to their account to maintain a credit balance.

The program allows you to avoid deposits and late fees.

Payments can be made on the SmartHub mobile app, online at SmartHub, payment kiosks located at Benton PUD offices, or the Pay by Phone service so they have multiple ways to use the new Pay As You Go plan.

It might be something worth thinking about - you can check out more details on the plan here.

More From 98.3 KEYW