ARKANSAS, USA — Lots of people living in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley may have noticed or will notice in the future, an increase in their electric bills.
“It seems like anytime there is any justification for them to increase rates, they find the necessity and pass it, so it comes across our bill,” Ty Petersen said.
OG&E says they are continuing to work with the Arkansas Public Service Commission to recover fuel costs from February’s winter storm. OG&E estimates the average residential customer will see a $4.50 increase on their bills each month. Barling resident, Ty Petersen says it’s very frustrating because as a small business owner he doesn’t have the luxury of passing off costs to his customers like OG&E is trying to do.
“When you have an entire monopoly on the situation you have the population at your mercy. Our options are what, put solar on our house and have astronomical amounts we have to put out initially with the hopes of reimbursement or just suck it up and pay it every month,” he said.
OG&E says customers will see this increase for a decade. They say they do not profit from fuel costs and charge customers only for the direct cost of the fuel.
SWEPCO customers also might soon be seeing significantly higher bills. If the rate increase is approved by the Arkansas Public Service Commission, an average residential customer could see their bill rise by as much as $19 a month.
“Certainty we recognize any increase is a challenge for customers and we try to balance that with the investments that we have to make in our electric system, in our generation, our transmission, our distribution systems, our investments in new clean energy to provide reliable service for our customers,” Peter Main said.
SWEPCO Communications Manager, Peter Main says the investments in clean energy includes the wind facility in North Central Oklahoma.
“The wind facilities provide savings to customers because they have no cost for fuel, the wind is free, and these facilities also have federal tax credits which get passed on to customers as well,” he said.
The City of Fayetteville is against the SWEPCO increase. The Fayetteville City Council approved a motion last week to let the city attorney intervene which means the city will be part of the hearings with the Public Service Commission and SWEPCO.