PPL Electric Utilities

Pittsburgh, PA: (Jun-18-07) A recent settlement reached with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) holds promise of a revision that would decrease electric bill rates for businesses, though residential customers would see a hike. Industrial and commercial customers of PPL Electric Utilities filed an appeal with a Commonwealth Court, contending that their electric rates were subsidizing rates paid by residential customers. PPL Electric Utilities and the PUC appealed the Commonwealth Court ruling, but the State Supreme Court refused to consider the appeal. The settlement proposes new rates that are higher for residential customers and lower for business customers to reflect the reallocation of distribution and transmission revenue beginning August 1, 2007. It also proposes temporary adjustments through December 31, 2009, to address revenue that has been collected from various groups of customers since January 1, 2005, when current rates became effective.

The monthly electric bill for a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours would increase by 3.8 percent from $96.52 to $100.20. Bills for industrial and commercial customers would decrease in the range of 2% to 5% per month, depending on their electricity use. Further, the settlement rates would eliminate recovery of those hurricane costs and provide for a $3.7 million refund to customers, including interest, for revenue collected since January 1, 2005. The refund would be reflected on customers' bills from August 2007 through December 2009. []

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Published on Jun-21-07