If First Energy Corp. Has its Way, Your Electric Bills May Go Up

Every month Pennsylvania residents pay for electric service. It used to be a fairly simple process – the local electric company would send a bill charging each customer for the amount of electricity the customer used, with additional charges to account for the costs of running the electric company, the power plants, and the poles and wires that delivered the electricity to homes.

The whole process of delivering electricity to customers and charging them for it has become extremely complicated over the years, however. At the heart of the process is how much customers should pay for electricity, but numerous other factors are involved.  How electricity is produced, who produces it, who sells it to customers, and who should make sure customers are paying a fair price are all questions that are debated every day in Pennsylvania.  For most consumers, however, the issue comes down to making sure you can afford to pay the electric bill to ensure that the lights come on and the refrigerator keeps running.

AARP Pennsylvania has been working to help individuals save money on their electric bills, and I’ve written about those efforts in a previous edition of Ray’s Round Up.  But electric bills could also become unaffordable for many consumers if they aren’t aware of proposals by electric companies to increase rates.

The First Energy Corporation is the parent company of four companies that provide electric service to Pennsylvania households – Metropolitan Edison Co., West Penn Power Co., Pennsylvania Power Co. (Penn Power), and Pennsylvania Electric Co. (Penelec). All the First Energy Companies have filed a request with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) to raise electric this year.  If approved, the monthly electric bill for a customer that uses 1000 kilowatts of electricity per month would increase between 9.6% and 17.1%, depending upon which company provides electric service to the customer.  This is after all four companies were permitted to raise their rates in 2014.

A part of this rate increase request is an increase in what is known as the “customer charge.” The customer charge is a part of the electric bill that a customer is charged before any actual use of electricity.  Right now, these four companies charge their customers between $5.81 and $10.85 per month for the customer charge.  The rate increase request would increase the customer charge to between $13.41 and $17.42 per month.

These rate increase requests come at a time when the overall inflation rate is so low that Social Security recipients did not receive a cost-of-living increase in 2016. Individuals on fixed incomes may have difficulty in affording these types of rate increases.  But what can consumers do about this?

The Public Utility Commission has scheduled a series of public hearings for utility customers to express how they could be impacted by these rate increases. AARP Pennsylvania plans to attend these hearings and if you are a customer of one of these companies, you should too.  The First Energy companies stretch the entire length and width of Pennsylvania, so numerous hearings have been scheduled.  Here is a list of the dates, times, and locations:

Tuesday, July 26, 2016 – 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Ambassador Center 7794 Peach St. Erie, PA 16509

Thursday, July 28, 2016 – 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Tanglewood Center 10 Austin Ave. Lyndora PA 16045

Thursday, August 4, 2016 – 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Days Inn 240 S. Pugh St. State College PA 16801

Thursday, August 11, 2016 – 1 p.m. Doubletree by Hilton 340 Race Track Rd. Washington PA 15301

Thursday, August 11, 2016 – 6 p.m. Greensburg Garden & Civic Center 951 Old Rd. Greensburg, PA 15601

Thursday, August 18, 2016 – 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. East Stroudsburg University Innovation Center Room 336 562 Independence Rd. East Stroudsburg, PA  18301

If you are a customer of one of these companies and object to a rate increase, attend one of these hearings and make your voice heard.

 

“Ray’s Round Up” features updates on current state and federal issues by Ray Landis, AARP PA’s Advocacy Manager.