Local Power Rates for June Edge Up With Summer Rate Season
Media Contact:
Wayne Scarbrough
(423) 745-4501 ext. 6002
wscarbrough@aub.org
ATHENS, Tenn. – Although the official start of summer won’t arrive until late in June, TVA’s summer rate season begins June 1, and that will push local power rates up slightly compared to May.
“We’ll go from $0.08616 per kilowatt hour up to $0.09136. The biggest difference month over month is the base rate as we move into TVA’s summer rate season,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.
Your energy rate—the price of a kilowatt hour of energy—has two components, the base rate and the fuel cost adder.
“The springtime base rate for April and May was $0.06497. For June through September—TVA’s summer rate season—the base rate will ratchet up to $0.07008,” Scarbrough said.
The June fuel charge from TVA of $0.02128 is nearly flat compared to May’s $0.02119, Scarbrough said.
Add the June base rate and monthly fuel charge and you get the all-up June rate of $0.09136 for AUB’s residential customers.
TVA’s rate schedule has three seasons. Summer is June through September and has the highest seasonal base rates. Winter is from December through March. The remaining four months in spring and fall are deemed “transition” months.
Scarbrough said that AUB and other Valley distributors continue to press TVA regarding plans for more rate hikes from the federal agency.
“We continue to hear TVA talk about another rate increase this fall, just like the past few years. And we continue to push back on that in this era of record TVA revenues,” Scarbrough said.
“TVA announces record revenues, insists on handing out $100 million in year-end bonuses every November as if it were an investor owned utility, and yet continues to squeeze our customers with another rate increase? We consider that unacceptable on behalf of our customers,” he said.
TVA has raised rates on AUB more than 32 percent in the past eight years while AUB has had no local rate increases to add to its operating bottom line, Scarbrough said.