By AUSTIN WEIFORD
The Exponent Telegram
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — Customers of Mon Power and Potomac Edison, subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corporation, will see about a 1.9 percent increase in their bills beginning this month. For typical customers who use 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, this will mean an increase of around $2.13. This price will remain constant until December 2018, when another rate assessment will take place.
The increase is a result of a settlement agreement approved by the Public Service Commission of West Virginia allowing recovery costs for fuel, purchased power expenses, energy-efficiency programs and environmental controls incurred by the utilities to provide safe and reliable electricity to customers, said Todd Meyers, spokesman for FirstEnergy.
Meyers said the settlement was unique in that customers will see stable prices over the next two years, and he added that some of the increase was going toward new services being offered to their customers.
Meyers said that while the majority of the increase will go toward fuel costs and purchasing power for the company, about 80 cents of the increase will support those energy-efficiency programs for customers.
“We have energy-efficiency programs in other states,” Meyers said. “And in West Virginia, we had programs available for low-income customers and for commercial customers, but nothing that really applied to typical customers.”
Meyers said the company is now offering things like discounts in big box stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot on energy-efficient purchases such as LED .
“We also have available online a set of questions that our customers can answer about their homes, and get tips on how they might be able to adjust their energy usage and save money,” Meyers said. “Customers who want one will also receive a free energy-efficiency kit in the mail, which contains LED lightbulbs and other items to help with power usage.”
“If the increase hadn’t been spread over those years, customers would see an increase of about 3.8 percent,” Meyers said. “So by spreading it out, we basically cut that in half. Some of our projections showed that the rate might have decreased in 2018, so instead of having a modest increase this year and then a decrease next year, we divided the increase to keep the price balanced and stable.”
Susan Small, spokeswoman for the Public Service Commission of West Virginia, said the role of the commission was to analyze the requests of the company and make sure the price increases were valid and that money was being spent responsibly.
“One thing to note about this particular case is that the increases do not represent a profit for the company,” Small said. “The rate review is a special purpose rate proceeding for electric utilities that allows cost recovery for prudently incurred costs for obtaining fuel, the cost of purchased power, purchased transmission costs and construction costs for specific projects.”
