KINGSPORT — Higher power bills in Kingsport this winter are certain following approval of a rate increase by state administrators.
Todd Burns with Appalachian Power (APCO) corporate communications said the Tennessee Regulatory Authority granted American Electric Power a rate adjustment of nearly 2 percent this summer. APCO is a division of AEP.
Based on kilowatt consumption hours, Burns says the average bill will be $88.37 for November, and the TRA allowed the increase to be passed along to customers due to company costs encountered during the 2009 winter storm being deferred until now.
“The rate we have is a set rate, although it varies from month to month in the Kingsport jurisdiction because the cost of fuel, primarily coal, changes from month to month,” said Burns.
AEP called its effort to restore power that winter in the Model City and portions of Hawkins and Scott counties the largest scale operation in its 84-year history when it initially filed for the increase in June.
The company said more than $1.6 million was expended in material and manpower costs to restore electricity to a good portion of the 47,000 customers on the Kingsport power grid following the December 2009 snowstorm.
“We had some other increases that were taking effect (following the 2009 storm), and at this time it is kind of the right time to not let those costs continue to linger, and (we) needed to move ahead and move (those costs) into rates,” Burns said back in June.
“We faced an extraordinary situation (in 2009 in Kingsport), and the way rates are designed, rates are set at a level to recoup our day-to-day cost of operating the business and experience storms within reason. The storm we experienced in 2009 was the worst we had ever seen.”
Tennessee Valley Authority customers in the Tri-Cities will also face a hike in power prices beginning next month, the agency announced earlier this week, with a 1.06 percent increase.
