Three cents. On one kilowatt-hour, that's pocket change. Across a month in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the power authority puts it at about twelve dollars, and it wants the money on an emergency basis. You're listening to Power Bill. After that, Appalachian Power's Virginia request, Massachusetts pulling a charge off electric bills, Ohio's winter reconnect rules, and a leftover bill from years ago landing on households in Telangana. First stop, St. Thomas. Follow the show and the next briefing lands in your feed on its own.
Ernice Gilbert, reporting for The Virgin Islands Consortium:
The V.I. Water and Power Authority is seeking an emergency three-cent-per-kilowatt-hour increase in the fuel charge on electric bills, saying it can no longer absorb higher fuel costs as pressure on the utility’s finances continues to build. WAPA estimates the proposal would add approximately $12 a month for a residential customer using 400 kilowatt-hours, if approved by the Public Services Commission.
Twelve dollars, and that's a modest four hundred kilowatt-hour home. The fuel charge, called the LEAC, would go from about 22.22 cents a kilowatt-hour to about 25.22. Why it's an emergency request: on September 8th, the Public Services Commission held the LEAC flat from October 1st through December 31st, at WAPA's own request. At that meeting, WAPA's CEO, Karl Knight, said a rate slightly above twenty-four cents would more accurately reflect fuel costs. WAPA now says costs have risen sharply since its July filing. And the cushion is gone. Governor Albert Bryan said on September 28th that the government had exhausted the federal money it used to help subsidize bills. WAPA was already carrying about fourteen million dollars in deferred fuel costs at the end of May. And a wrinkle: commission chair David Hughes said it couldn't pay consultants to review WAPA's July filing, because WAPA had only recently started paying what it owed the commission. So the review stalled partly over WAPA's own unpaid bills, and now WAPA wants the emergency lane. Knight's line: I know this is hard because we will feel it, too. It's proposed. The commission can approve, modify or reject it, and WAPA hasn't said when it would take effect or how long it would last.
Leslie Sattler, writing for The Cool Down and citing Cardinal News:
A typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours monthly would see the base-rate proposal add 5.4%, or $9.10, to the bill. The utility is also separately seeking to add $3.99 a month to cover the cost of renewable energy projects.
Put those side by side and it's thirteen dollars and nine cents a month. That's our addition, and both pieces are still requests. The base-rate case asks Virginia's State Corporation Commission for sixty-one point four million dollars more a year, a 3.3 percent bump. Base rates pay for running the utility day to day: maintenance, some new infrastructure, and profit. Fuel is billed separately. New rates couldn't take effect before March 1st. Two delegates, Will Morefield of Tazewell County and Mitchell Cornett of Grayson County, warned the commission that people would be forced to choose between paying the electric bill or buying groceries and medicine. That's from legislators, in writing. If you're an Appalachian Power customer in Virginia, the public hearing is Monday, October 19th. To speak, register by October 15th, and you get five minutes. Written comments are open through the commission's website and by mail. The evidentiary hearing follows on October 20th, and the commission's final decision is due by January 15th.
Marc Fortier and Matt Prichard, reporting for NBC Boston:
Healey said she will also eliminate a solar incentive charge on residential electric bills for three months and cut another alternative energy program, moves she said will lower energy bills for about 85% of Massachusetts ratepayers.
Governor Maura Healey declared a state of energy emergency on Monday. On the electric side, State House News Service spells it out: the SMART solar program charge comes off residential bills for three months, and the Alternative Portfolio Standard charge is cut in half this winter. Here's my problem. Eighty-five percent of ratepayers, fine. How many dollars off a typical bill? Nobody has said. The bigger dollars are on heating. The governor says heating oil is six oh eight a gallon, up from three fifty-two last year. About fifty thousand middle-class oil-heat households can get up to six hundred eighty dollars, and about a hundred fifty-six thousand low-income households get bigger heating assistance. And it's an election year. Her Republican opponent, Mike Minogue, says he's been pushing a similar plan for a year and calls this obviously a campaign move. Healey points to the war in Iran. Whatever the motive, three months without a charge is temporary. Find the SMART line on your bill now, so you'll notice when it comes back.
Brian Koeller, writing in The Bryan Times:
Under the order, customers must pay the utility no more than $175 plus any applicable reconnection charge, which cannot exceed $36. If the utility’s reconnect charge is greater than $36, the balance above $36 may be charged to the customer on the customer’s next monthly bill.
This is the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio's special reconnect order for winter. It runs from October 12th through April 16th. If you've been shut off, or you're about to be, you can keep or restore electric or gas service for no more than two hundred eleven dollars up front. That's the hundred seventy-five, plus a reconnect fee capped at thirty-six. And there's no income test. Any residential customer of a PUCO-regulated utility can use it. More than two hundred twenty-seven thousand Ohioans did last winter. Two limits. It's once per heating season. And it doesn't erase the debt. The utility sets up a payment plan for whatever's left after the hundred seventy-five. Two hundred twenty-seven thousand households needing this is its own headline. If you're at or below a hundred seventy-five percent of the federal income guidelines, the HEAP winter crisis program can help cover that hundred seventy-five. It also caps what you pay up front on a new-service deposit at a hundred seventy-five. Call your utility starting October 12th to apply.
From The Hindu Bureau in Hyderabad:
A household consuming 200 units of energy a month for instance, would have to pay an additional charge of ₹60 in the bill to be issued in November ₹100 from December onwards, till March 2029 in case of consumers of TGSPDCL and till December 2028 in case of TGNPDCL consumers.
Sixty rupees on the November bill, a hundred a month after that, for more than two years. And it's for power people already used in 2022-23 and 2023-24. That's what a true-up is: the gap between what supplying the power cost and what the distribution companies collected, blamed on fuel, power purchase and operating costs. The Telangana Electricity Regulatory Commission approved the recovery in an order on Monday. Thirty paise per unit in November, fifty paise from December. A unit here is a kilowatt-hour. Farm pump-sets are exempt. For that share, about twenty-two hundred crore rupees, the commission told the companies to go to the state government. Everyone else, households, shops, industry, picks up five thousand four hundred twenty crore. Compare Haryana, from Saturday's show. There, the utilities missed a deadline and forfeited the fuel costs. Telangana's recovery was approved, so households pay.
Got a line on your bill you can't decode, or a rate case in your state we should be reading? Tell us at powerbill at lantern podcasts dot com.
One to watch today: Maine's commission is set to deliberate on Central Maine Power's temporary rate request. We'll have what it decided. Every story from this episode is linked in the show notes. Power Bill is back tomorrow. Power Bill is a Lantern Podcast.