Starting from July this year, you’ll see as much as $4.00 increase in your monthly PEPCO bill.
According to this news, “Pepco customers in Maryland would see a 2.5 percent increase in the rate they are charged for electricity distribution, under a request the utility filed last week with the state’s Public Service Commission. For example, residential customers who get standard offer service and use 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month would see an average $3.76 increase that would raise their monthly bill from $151.78 to $155.54, according to Pepco.”
On the rate hike, Crystal Kim, the director of a consumer advocacy group Justice First, “Our utility rates have doubled in the last five years. Since the 2005 Bush Administration, there has been a 30 percent increase in the electricity rates. This is double in the D.C. area, where the average bill is 100 percent more than it was five years ago.”
Early this month, PEPCO reported a decrease in first-quarter profit, citing higher Power Delivery operation and maintenance expense related to two severe winter storms that occurred in February 2010 as well as income tax adjustments of uncertain tax positions.
PEPCO will be having a hearing on the proposed rate hikes in place for the upcoming year. The hearing will be held on Thursday, May 20, at 6:30 pm in the College Park City Council Chambers. The public hearing notice is available here.
More news on the rate hike can be found on PEPCO’s official website here.
Michael Strotz
Readers should be aware that Pepco’s electricity prices are 20% above market. If you don’t like paying Pepco’s high rates, you can reduce your bill by lowering the price of your electricity. Here’s how you do it.
Due to energy deregulation, you can choose the energy company that supplies the electricity delivered to you by Pepco. Choose a low cost supplier and you will pay less.
Pepco’s typical residential customers (rate class “R”) in Maryland are paying an average annual cost of 12.51 cents per kWh for their electricity supply. This is Pepco’s price to cmpare, which is the averge of their winter and summer rates and is the actual price that a typical residential electricity customer pays Pepco for their electricity supply.
Pepco customers can get their electricity supply delivered by Pepco for 9.6 cents per kWh by enrolling in the electricity supply program offered by Washington Gas Energy Services (WGES). (WGES supplies electricity and natural gas at low cost to 240,000 customers in DC and Maryland. Pepco, Washington Gas, and other utilities deliver it.)
To get this price, go to http://www.LowerElectricityRates.com . Follow the link on the page to WGES’ enrollment site. The link contains an embedded discount pricing code that will bring up discounted price offers. If you do not access WGES’ enrollment site via the link on http://www.LowerElectricityRates.com, WGES’ will offer prices that are about 6% higher. Use the link.
Choose WGES as your supplier and Pepco will bill you for the electricity you use at WGES’ price rather than at their higher rate. If you are on Pepco’s budget billing plan, you can continue paying that way. If you move, you can terminate your WGES supply agreement without penalty.
Pepco will continue to deliver your electricity, respond to emergencies, read the meter, and do the billing as always. None of that changes. There is no service interruption. Nothing is connected or disconnected.