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House backs lower power rates bill
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Posted on Nov 27 2006
A proposed legislation seeking to bring power rates down passed the House of Representatives in a special session yesterday.
The House members approved an amended version of House Bill 15-193, further reducing the rate scale originally proposed by the bill’s author, House Minority Leader Arnold I. Palacios.
The version now awaiting Senate action seeks to cut the monthly customer charges assessed by the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.: from $5.60 to $3.50 for residential customers, from $7.67 to $6 for businesses and government, and from $56 to $45 for non-conforming load.
The bill, as amended by the Lower House, also proposes to peg electric non-fuel rates charged residential customers at one cent per kwh for the first 500 kwh, and at 4.4 cents per kwh for anything over 500 kwh. It also proposes electric non-fuel rates of 7.7 cents per kwh for commercial and government customers, and 21 cents for non-conforming load.
Currently, CUC applies a four-tier non-fuel rate schedule for residential customers: 1.6 cents per kwh for the first 500 kwh; 6.6 cents for the next 500 kwh; 8.6 cents for the succeeding 1,000 kwh, and 12.7 cents for anything beyond 2,000 kwh.
H.B. 15-193 also seeks to set different electric fuel rates for different groups of customers. CUC has uniform rates for all customer types.
The bill would reduce electric fuel rates to 17.6 cents per kwh for households and businesses, and to 18.6 cents per kwh for government and non-conforming load.
In an interview, Palacios said that this was intended to provide the private sector with much needed relief. He added that the slightly higher rate for the public sector should encourage government offices to further conserve energy.
The electric fuel rates would fluctuate depending on the actual cost of fuel.
CUC’s fuel rate for the month of November is 20.6 cents per kwh, up by 1.2 cents compared with October.
