Commerce council OKs 4.5% electric rate increase

The owners of those plants, including the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, of which Commerce is a member, must not only pay for the equipment, but they must also purchase electricity on the open market to replace power lost while the generating plants are shut down to install the equipment.

“Most residential customers will see an increase of between $2.34 and $4.68 (a month),” said accounting manager James Wascher, who pointed out that most residential customers use between 500 and 1,000 kwh of electricity a month.
The 4.52-percent increase is substantially less than an estimate of a 10-percent hike made when the situation first arose.

“It was 10 percent,” Wascher noted. “MEAG was able to make some changes and reduce the amount.”

Councilman Mark Fitzpatrick made the motion to approve the rate increase. Darren Owensby provided a second, and the vote was unanimous.

The vote also includes a change in the way the power bills are presented to show the power cost adjustment. The PWA has always been a component of electric bills, but did not show up as a line item. It is currently .570 cents per kwh; with the rate increase, it will go to 1.038 cents per kwh. Line items will show an “environmental cost” of .628 cents (reflecting the cost of the equipment purchase and installation) and the power cost adjustment of .41 cents per kwh (reflecting the increased cost of buying electricity, due in part to plants being shut down to install the equipment).