The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to review once again the standard offer electric rates of Blackstone Valley Electric Co. and Newport Electric Corp on Dec. 7.
If the PUC approves the request of Eastern Utilities Associates, which owns both utilities, the bill of the average residential BVE customer could increase by about $1.49 a month and Newport customers could see an increase of $1.63 per billing period, according to Todd McLeish, a spokesman for BVE.
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The impact on commercial customers would be affected by the amount of electricity they use, he said.
The average residence uses about 500 kilowatt hours of electricity a month.
Last year EUA proposed a seven-year plan for its standard offer rate, which is a basic charge offered by the state’s three incumbent electric companies while retail-style competition is gradually introduced.
State legislators passed a law in 1996 breaking up parts of the electric industry in the hopes that new companies could enter the Rhode Island market and offer electricity at lower rates. But the law also provided for a fallback rate — the standard offer — to protect customers, who are hesitant to chose a new electric supplier or who would not immediately benefit from a change. The rate, however, is designed to increase each year over a 12 year period until finally it is so expensive that it forces all consumers into the market.
Instead of approving EUA’s multi-year plan, the PUC instead opted to require the company to return for an annual review. EUA’s wants to increase the standard offer rate from 3.2 cents a kilowatt hour to 3.5 cents in 1999, according to McLeish. It is the same rate increase proposed in the original plan, he added.
In the fall of 1997, the PUC had ordered both EUA and Narragansett Electric to redo their standard offer proposals, because neither company had completed a competitive bid process to see if other electric suppliers could provide customers with a lower standard offer rate. But this past April when the two companies returned to the board they reported there was a lackluster response to their request for bids and that none offered a better price.
Narragansett’s standard offer of 3.5 cents for 1999 was already approved.
