W.Va. Rate Settlement Approved

January 8, 2019

Mon Power and Potomac Edison recently announced that the Public Service Commission (PSC) of West Virginia has approved a settlement agreement that will lower electric rates by more than $77 million in 2019 due to reduced costs for fuel, purchased power and energy efficiency programs.

The settlement was negotiated by the utilities, PSC Staff, the Consumer Advocate Division and the West Virginia Energy Users Group.  The new rates began Jan. 1, 2019 and remain in place until Dec. 31, 2019.

As a result, the monthly bill for a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity will drop to $105.83 from the current $108.25.

“We are committed to providing our customers safe and reliable electricity at an affordable cost,” said Holly Kauffman, president, West Virginia Operations.  “This is the second time in recent months that we have reduced rates for our West Virginia customers. In September, we reduced rates by nearly $2 per month for average residential customers from savings associated with the federal tax cut.  Those savings, coupled with lower fuel and purchased power costs, will cut the average residential customer’s monthly bill by more than $4.”

With the decreases, rates for Mon Power and Potomac Edison’s West Virginia residential customers will be about 19 percent below the national average.

Under a cost recovery process established by the PSC in 2007, Mon Power and Potomac Edison customer bills are adjusted annually to reflect increases or decreases in the cost of fuel used to generate electricity and purchase power.  Mon Power and Potomac Edison do not profit from fuel and purchased power costs.

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