As Temperatures Fall, So Do Local Power Rates
Media Contact:
Wayne Scarbrough
(423) 745-4501 ext. 6002
wscarbrough@aub.org
January 17, 2019
ATHENS, Tenn. – Many are talking about the first really cold wave of the 2019 winter season that is predicted to usher in lows around 17 degrees this weekend.
Some warming news in the midst of the cold is that local power rates will fall a bit in February.
The AUB residential power rate for February will be $0.09133 per kilowatt hour compared to January’s rate of $0.09258.
“Any decrease this time of year is good news for our customers. We’ll all use more energy in the coming weeks and throughout the winter, realistically, to keep our homes and offices heated to our liking,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.
As with the current month of January, February is a winter season base-rate month, so that component of the rate is consistent month to month.
The decrease in the February rate comes on slightly lower generation fuel charges from AUB’s vendor of wholesale power, TVA.
To keep winter bills in check, AUB advises customers to take simple steps such as:
-Installing weather stripping around doors and windows
-Keeping doors and windows shut
-Letting in the sun’s warmth when possible to take advantage of solar gain in your home
-Setting your thermostat on 68 (or less) and wearing warm PJs in the evenings at home
-Changing your heating system’s air filters and having your unit tuned up by a local professional, so that it runs efficiently.
“It is nice to see the fuel cost remain low, especially in light of TVA’s most recent base rate increase on AUB that took effect Oct. 1,” Scarbrough said.
TVA has raised AUB’s wholesale rate by 2.3 to 2.5 percent annually each October for several years, and has raised AUB’s rate by more than 37-percent in the last decade.
“If you look at that number on a compounded basis, it is even higher,” said AUB General Manager Eric Newberry.
“It is very frustrating for us and for our customers to hear TVA executives claim, ‘we’re doing all we can to keep rates low,’ and then watch them turn around and purchase corporate jets and helicopters fit for billionaires,” Newberry said.
“Couple that with the fact that within a month of raising our rate again in October, they paid out more than $145 million of ratepayer money in bonuses.
“That should be a big red flag for every public power customer in the Valley,” he said. “That is not a way to keep rates low.”
Newberry and several other distributor managers recently met with a member of TVA’s board of directors to discuss concerns on behalf of local ratepayers.
“He listened. But the proof of whether our concerns will be taken back to the board room at TVA for serious consideration by the staff will be in how TVA operates and makes decisions going forward,” Newberry said.
TVA’s CEO, Bill Johnson, recently announced his upcoming departure from the federal power agency.
“We hope that when a new CEO is put in place, it will be a person who understands and embraces what public power is about and what the TVA Act means when it says that the agency must keep rates as low as feasible,” Newberry said.
About 83 cents of every dollar that AUB’s power division collects goes to TVA for wholesale power that is then distributed by AUB to the local utility’s 13,250 power customers.
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