Fuel adjustment to increase town electric bills
By Staff
Town residential electric customers face an almost 11-percent increase in their electric bills due to the wholesale electric provider’s increased cost to produce electricity. The increase will appear in electric bills going out this week.
Town Light and Power Director Mark Bly said the town’s 10.94 percent fuel factor increase comes as Dominion Virginia Power, the town’s wholesale electricity provider, asked the State Corporation Commission earlier this week for approval to raise rates of its residential customers by 18.3 percent. Dominion Virginia Power wants the increase to cover the rising cost of producing electricity using oil, natural gas and coal.
The town must pass along this added fuel cost.
“It is strictly a pass through from our wholesale provider,” Bly said. “It has nothing to do with any rate increase approved by council.”
Each April, as part of its contract with Dominion Virginia Power, the Virginia Municipal Electric Association, of which the town is a member, receives word of possible adjustments in the fuel factor.
The average residential bill will increase by about $9.85 from $89.99 to $99.84.