APRIL MARKS FIRST “TRANSITION” SEASON MONTH; POWER RATES FALL

April is the first of four “transition season” months in TVA’s ratemaking system, and with the lowest base rates of the year this first transition month brings lower rates to all AUB power customers.

“In fact, TVA’s fuel cost for April is falling far enough that the total power rate will go below 10 cents a kilowatt hour for the first time in almost a year,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.

The total power rate for April will fall from the current $0.10024 to $0.09257.

 AUB’s portion of the power rate will be $0.07043, while the TVA fuel cost makes up the remaining $0.02214.

“AUB’s portion of the rate is going down to the transition rate for April and May, so next month AUB’s part will still be just over seven cents.  The other two ‘transition rate’ months come in October and November,” Scarbrough said.

“We certainly hope TVA holds its fuel charge down going forward.  And, of course, we hope their portion of the power rate doesn’t increase either, so we can stay below 10 cents per kilowatt hour going forward,” he said.

The fuel rate charged by TVA is different from the power rate they charge to AUB.

“It can be a bit confusing, talking about the power rate and then talking about the fuel charge,” Scarbrough said.

“The fuel charge that for April is roughly 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour is not what TVA’s power rate to us is.  It’s just their monthly charge to us based on fuel costs, which involves many variables and goes up and down,” Scarbrough explained.

“Then, on top of that, we pay them the TVA power rate charge, and AUB has a power rate to cover our costs.  We combine those two rate costs as our overall power rate.”    

AUB’s power rate has increased less than eight percent in the past 25 years.  TVA, however, has increased its power rate by more than 62-percent in fewer than 20 years.

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