Bowling Green told to phase in multi‑year electric rate increases and borrow to smooth 2026 spike

Bowling Green’s utilities staff and consultant Trey Shepard laid out a multi‑year electric rate plan they said is designed to align customer charges with rising power‑supply, capital and operating costs while avoiding a sudden rate shock.

Trey Shepard, a consultant with Solvent Associates, told the Bowling Green Utilities Board the city faces multiple cost pressures—higher power‑supply capacity and transmission charges, greater capital needs and rising local O&M costs—that together create the need for new revenues. “You’re required to maintain a 1.1 ratio of coverage. We plan for 1.3,” Shepard said as he described the study’s financial targets.

Why it matters: The study estimates the 2026 revenue requirement at about $74 million while current revenues at existing rates generate roughly $61 million. Shepard and staff said the gap cannot reasonably be closed in a single year without an outsized bill impact. To blunt a projected spike in power‑supply costs in 2026, the presentation proposed using AMP’s rate‑stabilization financing to borrow…