NOVEMBER POWER RATES REMAIN STEADILY LOW

ATHENS, Tenn. – As winter draws upon us, meaning that more electricity will be used to keep homes warm, it is good to see that local power rates remain steady.

For Athens Utilities Board (AUB) and its customers, November residential rates will come in at $0.08381, just above the October rate of $0.08259.

The fall season that we now are in has base power rates that are the lowest of the year.

“Rates remain essentially flat from month to month, so if you use about the same amount of electricity your power bill will also remain essentially flat,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.

In the TVA rate scheme, October and November are called ‘transitional’ months, with base power rates below the summer base and the upcoming winter base rate, which begins in December, Scarbrough said.

“At AUB, we continue to watch COVID affect more and more in McMinn County and the state.  Therefore, our main office remains closed for foot traffic because the situation now is unchanged, with no vaccine being available,” he said.

“We have to do all we can to make sure that we have everyone here.  We run extremely lean.  If we lost a couple of customer service reps or cashiers, who have the most personal interaction with customers, we’d be in a tough situation to work with customers,” he said.

“As we say regularly, you should see a mask on any AUB employee if they are around another person.  We urge everyone in the area to do the same for their neighbors,” Scarbrough said.

About 83 cents of every dollar that AUB’s power division collects go to TVA for wholesale power.