The three-member Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission initially agreed yesterday to the proposed increase in the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s electric base rates. This is expected to take effect after the issuance of a formal CPUC decision next week.<\/p>\n
This means CUC, upon the effective date of the commission\u2019s order, will be authorized to increase its electric base rates to produce $2.8 million on an annualized basis. This increase would be accomplished with the creation of a $0.21 per kWh \u201cinfrastructure surcharge\u201d that the commission also approved for implementation.<\/p>\n
According to the commission, the infrastructure surcharge will expire on Jan. 1, 2015, unless extended by CPUC.<\/p>\n
CUC officials led by executive director Alan Fletcher and chief financial officer Charles Warren disclosed during deliberation yesterday that also factored in the $2.8 million revenue requirement in the electric base rate is an allocation to pay for CUC\u2019s remaining obligation to Pacific Marine Industrial Corp., the former independent operator of Power Plant 4. <\/p>\n
In its initial decision yesterday, CPUC required CUC to undertake a study of its electric distribution infrastructure and develop a list of required capital projects that could be funded by continuing the surcharge after PMIC is paid off. <\/p>\n
CUC is required to pay PMIC $341,000 a month until December 2014. <\/p>\n
After yesterday\u2019s hearing, Fletcher expressed appreciation for the CPUC\u2019s consideration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thank CPUC because they put in hours to work on this. It\u2019s never popular to raise rates. It\u2019s tough to go to the public, but we feel the money [CUC asked for] is necessary in order to operate the utility agency efficiently to meet our obligations for service as well as stipulated order requirements,\u201d Fletcher told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
Yesterday\u2019s deliberation lasted more than four hours, during which the CPUC was presented with additional facts and information pertaining to the proposed base rate hike, along with other CUC proposals. <\/p>\n
According to CPUC chair Joseph Guerrero, hearing examiner Harry Boertzel is now drafting what the commission initially recommended in yesterday\u2019s hearing, for adoption at their next meeting.<\/p>\n
In affixing the commission\u2019s initial approval to a number of recommendations, Guerrero pointed out the need to properly inform the public and CUC customers of any changes that may appear in their billing.<\/p>\n
[B]Refund[\/B]<\/p>\n
Besides the $2.8 million base rate increase, CPUC also determined yesterday that CUC should be authorized to institute a 36-month residential refund of $0.023 kWh, which would be funded by a reciprocal increase in commercial rates. <\/p>\n
CUC officials and representatives revealed that the refund mechanism aims to provide rebates to residential customers totaling $1.13 million\u2014the same amount that will be raised from CUC\u2019s commercial costumers. This refund is recommended for implementation on March 1, 2017.<\/p>\n
[B]Non-rate fees[\/B]<\/p>\n
CUC initially proposed 20 non-rate fees for the electric utility division, but concerns were expressed on about 10 of these charges. Those 10 are now deferred to the commission\u2019s spring session.<\/p>\n
Among the non-rate fees that the CPUC approved was the increase in non-sufficient funds fee from $25 to $40; increase in new service fee for meter change out from $60 to $95; the imposition of a $90 inspection fee; an increase in the meter test fee for single phase from $30 to $75; meter test fee for three phase, $110; a disconnection notice fee of $15; $60 fee for reconnection at meter; and loweding the disconnection fee at meter from $60 to $45.<\/p>\n
For water and wastewater divisions, approved were a lab service charge of $60; increase the wastewater tipping fee from $25 to $80; imposition of $100 as fee for backflow device inspection; FOG installation inspection fee, $170; FOG biannual inspection fee, $60; and FOG remediation fee, $110; among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The three-member Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission initially agreed yesterday to the proposed increase in the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s electric base rates. This is expected to take effect after the issuance of a formal CPUC decision next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}