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Berea utility cites rising wholesale costs as reason for rate adjustment; typical bill up $5.76/month
Summary
Berea Municipal Utilities plans a rate adjustment to offset higher wholesale power and transmission costs; the utility says the typical residential bill will rise $5.76 per month before taxes and that funds will go toward equipment upgrades, grid automation and an AMI meter rollout over the next 12 months.
Berea Municipal Utilities plans to raise rates to cover higher wholesale power and transmission costs, the utility’s director, Kevin Howard, said during a city-hosted discussion. Howard said the change will increase a typical residential bill by $5.76 per month before taxes.
"The primary reason for our rate increase is due to the rising cost of wholesale power," Howard said, citing fuel-price volatility, market conditions and higher transmission and generation costs as drivers. He told the city-hosted program that BMU purchases all of its power under a wholesale contract and maintains the local distribution infrastructure.
Howard described the components of a customer's bill: a fixed customer-service charge to recover billing and meter costs, an energy charge based on kilowatt-hour usage and a power cost adjustment (PCA) that captures month-to-month wholesale-price fluctuations. He said the PCA is used "in lieu of performing a rate analysis anytime that there's a shift in the power market." Howard said customers would be informed of any base-rate increase.
When asked how much the average customer will see their bill increase, Howard said the typical bill will rise $5.76 per month before taxes, and that actual changes will vary with household usage. The discussion included an approximate monthly-usage reference but did not specify a precise kWh figure.
Howard tied the rate adjustment to planned investments in reliability, saying the funds will support replacing aging infrastructure, modernizing equipment and investing in grid automation to reduce outages and speed restorations. He also announced a planned AMI metering rollout over the next 12 months to give customers more detailed, near-real-time usage data.
Addressing online criticism that "BMU is just in it for the money," Howard said the utility is city owned and "not a for-profit utility," adding that rate revenue returns to system upkeep and improvements. He described a reserve fund kept to respond to catastrophic infrastructure failures and to protect customers from unforeseen costs.
On customer assistance, Howard encouraged customers facing hardship to consult resources on the utility website (as stated in the discussion, briutilities.com) for billing arrangements and outside-assistance options, and to call the office before any potential disconnection for nonpayment.
The program closed with the host saying the city would link the utility website and phone number for customers seeking more information. No formal vote or public hearing outcome was recorded during the segment.
