Local Power Rates on the Menu for May

Media Contact:

Wayne Scarbrough

(423) 745-4501 ext. 6002

wscarbrough@aub.org

April 25, 2019

ATHENS, Tenn. – Local electric power rates will fall just a bit in May on slightly lower TVA generation fuel costs.

The effective AUB residential power rate for May will be $0.08662 per kilowatt hour compared to April’s rate of $0.08685.

The effective rate that AUB customers pay is the sum of two components: the seasonal base rate and the monthly fuel charge.

April and May—along with October and November—are deemed “transition” rate months in TVA’s rate scheme and have the lowest base rate of the year, said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.

The transition season base rate is $0.06917. The fuel charge for May is $0.01745, just under April’s fuel charge of $0.01768.

Scarbrough maintains that what keeps local effective rates low are the efforts of local power distributors like AUB that serve the 10 million retail customers of the Valley.

“It’s a challenge to keep that effective rate steadily low when our cost for wholesale power rises notably every fall. TVA has increased our wholesale rates every fall for several years running and probably will again this October,” Scarbrough said.

AUB’s power bill from TVA runs around $4 million a month, Scarbrough said.

“If effective rates paid by community customers are to remain low it’s up to the local providers like AUB to make that happen, and we invite TVA to stop the wholesale increases anytime to help us out on that,” he 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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