A rare sight out of Maine: a commission's own staff telling a utility it hasn't earned the money yet. You're listening to Power Bill. Today a fuel charge actually goes down, a mega-ask goes up, and Maine's commissioners still haven't said whether they'll listen to their own people. So let's start with the one going down, in Gainesville. Hit follow and you won't have to come looking for the next episode. Here's Mainstreet Daily News:
According to a GRU release sent Monday, GRU will reduce its electric fuel adjustment from 50 to 45 mills and its purchased gas adjustment from 35 to 32 cents per therm. The electric fuel adjustment reduction will lower the bill for a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours from $151.60 to $146.60, a savings of $5.
Okay, a utility actually cutting something. Gainesville Regional Utilities took its electric fuel adjustment from 50 mills down to 45, effective yesterday. On a 1,000 kilowatt-hour bill, that's $151.60 down to $146.60. Five dollars a month, real, and already on the meter. The gas side's thinner: 25 therms goes from $35.74 to $34.99. Seventy-five cents. And do the math on what's left. At 45 mills, fuel's forty-five bucks of that bill, so the other hundred-and-one-sixty is everything else. GRU says it held base rates flat for a third straight year going into October, and fine, they get credit for that too. If you've ever wondered how you'd know cheaper fuel reached you, look at the fuel adjustment line, priced per kilowatt-hour. Just remember GRU moves that dial on market conditions. The same dial that turned it down Tuesday can turn it right back up, no rate case needed. Kaitlyn Budion, writing in Maine Morning Star:
CMP is seeking to increase its revenue by $189 million, and while that case is pending before the commission, the utility requested a temporary rate increase to provide $69.3 million. CMP estimates the proposed temporary rate would mean an increase of $7 a month for the typical residential customer using around 550 kilowatt hours each month.
Sixty-nine point three million dollars. That's what CMP wanted to collect while the rest of its hundred-and-eighty-nine-million-dollar case is still pending. And Maine PUC staff just told them no. Staff said no. The commissioners haven't voted. It's a recommended decision, published Monday. But the reasoning's tidy: so many intervenors are contesting the number that there's no 'undisputed' amount to approve, and that's the bar. And there's a dispute because people showed up. Fight the Hike was rallying outside the Lewiston library before the June hearing. Credit where the process held. Now let's see if the people with votes read it the same way. CMP's own estimate is seven dollars a month at 550 kilowatt-hours. Right after GRU's five-dollar cut, here's a per-household number actually on the table, and staff used it as a reason to make the utility wait for its money. From Dawn:
At a public hearing conducted by Nepra members Maqsood Anwar Khan, Amina Ahmed and Ghulamullah Shaikh, the chief executive officer of Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) Rehan Akhtar said the major reason for Rs1.73 per unit additional fuel cost in August was the expensive RLNG and coal imports and lower-than-estimated availability of cheaper hydropower and nuclear facilities.
Remember the GRU cut we just hit? Same machine, opposite direction. Pakistan's regulator, Nepra, is weighing an extra Rs25 billion in fuel costs for October bills, about Rs1.73 a unit, for fuel burned back in August. And the power purchaser's CEO, Rehan Akhtar, laid out exactly why. Karachi's nuclear plant went down, so nuclear delivered 10 percent instead of 16.4. Imported coal filled the gap at 15.6 percent, double the plan, at Rs17 a unit. Local coal? Rs5.5. So a reactor outage turns into a line on somebody's October bill in Lahore. Two months later. And that lag's how customers find out: the charge shows up after the fuel's already gone, up or down. Meanwhile Nepra's scheduled a separate hearing for October 5th to review the discount package for industry. Households get the Rs1.73. Industry gets a hearing. Free Press Journal writes:
Madhya Pradesh electricity consumers will pay higher power bills as the fuel and power purchase adjustment surcharge (FPPAS) has increased from 4.59% to 5.063%. The revised surcharge will apply to bills issued between September 24 and October 23. The additional cost will depend on electricity consumption, energy charges and tariff slabs, with higher users facing a greater impact.
And over in India, it's pointing up too. Madhya Pradesh's fuel and power purchase surcharge goes from 4.59 to 5.063 percent, and it's already riding on bills issued since September 24. Careful with that five percent, though. It's charged on the energy charge only, not the whole bill. So a 300-unit household pays about seven and a half rupees more, and a 100-unit household about two forty-six. Which is how you actually find out whether fuel costs reached you. You find the line. In Gainesville it's 50 mills down to 45. In Bhopal it's this percentage, reset for a September-to-October window, and it's climbing the same week Pakistan's staring at twenty-five billion rupees in extra fuel cost. So that settles my Gainesville question. The dial that handed customers five dollars back is the same kind of dial that just turned up here, on a formula, one billing window at a time. Here's John Ryan at KUOW:
Puget Sound Energy is asking state regulators to approve $1.5 billion in rate increases over the next three years. The proposal would cost a typical PSE electricity customer an additional $612 a year by 2029 and a typical gas customer $276 a year.
Puget Sound Energy wants one-point-five billion dollars over three years, and tucked inside is a raise for itself. It wants its profit margin bumped from 9.9 to 10.8 percent. The state Attorney General's office says it should be 8.2. Household number, per Consumer Reports: six hundred twelve dollars a year on a typical electric bill by 2029. Call it fifty-one bucks a month. Gas adds two seventy-six a year, roughly twenty-three a month. And all of it's proposed. Nothing's approved. Fifty-one a month, and the CEO calls it 'responsible and thoughtful.' The Lacey hearing was last night, and the commission warned people they might end up waiting in line outside, so, bring a coat. Which leaves October 7th, 6 p.m., online. After the Maine staff call we just heard, I'd point any PSE customer there. That margin jump from 9.9 to 10.8 has a per-household price, and the comment record is where you can ask the commission to put that figure on paper. Got feedback, a story idea, or a correction? Email us at powerbill at lantern podcasts dot com. We'd love to hear what you're noticing and what you want us to cover next.
Looking ahead: parties have until Oct. 5 to respond to Maine PUC staff's recommendation to deny CMP's temporary rate increase. And on Oct. 7 at 6 p.m., Washington regulators hold an online public-comment hearing on Puget Sound Energy's rate request.
Links to every story are in the show notes if you want to dig into the ones that caught your attention. That's Power Bill for today. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back tomorrow. This is a Lantern Podcast.