TacticScaleWhat Avista Does & How It Makes Money (AVA)
Updated October 2026 · reflects Avista's latest reported financials
Electric and natural gas utility serving the Pacific Northwest and Juneau, Alaska. Avista earns regulated revenue by generating, transmitting and distributing electricity and natural gas to retail customers.
How Avista makes money
Avista earns regulated revenue by generating, transmitting and distributing electricity and natural gas to retail customers. It also makes money from wholesale buying and selling of electricity and natural gas, plus smaller venture fund and real estate investments.
What Avista does
Avista Corporation, founded in 1889 as Washington Water Power, is a Spokane-based utility with two segments. Avista Utilities provides electric and natural gas distribution and transmission in eastern Washington and northern Idaho, natural gas distribution in parts of Oregon, and electric supply in Montana. It generates power from hydroelectric, thermal, wind and solar facilities and trades electricity and gas wholesale. As of December 31, 2025, it served about 429,000 retail electric customers and 386,000 retail natural gas customers. The Alaska Electric Light and Power (AEL&P) segment supplies electricity to about 17,600 customers in Juneau. It has five hydroelectric plants with 102.7 MW of capacity and four diesel plants with 107.5 MW. Avista also holds smaller venture fund, real estate and other investments.
Products & services
- Retail electric service
- Retail natural gas distribution
- Electric and gas transmission
- Hydroelectric, thermal, wind and solar generation
- Wholesale electricity and natural gas trading
- AEL&P electric service in Juneau, Alaska
What is Avista worth?
On an owner-earnings DCF, Avista's most-likely value is about $12 versus a recent price near $35 (65% above fair value). But TacticScale only calls a stock undervalued when the price sits below its conservative no-growth floor (~$8) with a margin of safety — so the honest verdict here is “Stretched — richly priced.” Fair value earns its keep only at the extremes, not in the wide middle.
Today's $35 is above even the optimistic Bull case ($14) — the market expects faster, longer growth than modeled here. Expensive unless that extra growth actually shows up.
⚠ High leverage — net debt is 50.3× annual cash flow. Net debt is subtracted from this fair value, but refinancing at higher rates, principal timing, and share dilution aren’t modeled — the equity can be worth far less if cash flow weakens.
⚠ Capital-intensive — this business reinvests heavily, so free cash flow runs well below its earnings. Fair value here is built on free cash flow, which understates owner earnings for reinvestment-heavy companies — read it as conservative.
Analysis, not advice. Fair value is a margin-of-safety estimate from a deterministic owner-earnings DCF, not a price target or recommendation. See the full breakdown →
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