Via an action letter from Louisville Climate Action Network
LG&E has filed another case with the Ky. Public Service Commission (PSC), asking to raise and restructure its gas and electric rates in regressive, anti-consumer ways. (Its sister utility, Kentucky Utilities, sells power only and filed a similar case.) If LG&E has its way:
- Mandatory, flat monthly “service fees” for all residential and commercial customers would increase by 12%. Raising fixed charges cuts customers’ ability to manage bills by using less, as well as their payback on investments in energy efficiency or solar power.
- Usage or consumption rates based on consumption would go up, too, by 12% for residential customers, and 17% for commercial customers, including nonprofits, houses of worship, etc.
- Net-metering would be rigged in LG&E’s favor. It would sell customers’ excess, daytime solar power to other customers for 4-5 times what LG&E would pay the solar customers who produced it. Then, LG&E would charge solar customers 4-5 more when they drew power at night or whenever they needed more power than they generated, slowing the payback on customers’ solar panels.
LCAN’s perspective
- Utilities get to operate as monopolies and earn near-guaranteed profits. In exchange, their ability to raise rates is limited, and they’re subject to other rules. They must serve customers equitably, in ways that “free-market” businesses are not.
- Utility regulation is public policy. Without regulation, the availability, quality, and cost of service would vary greatly, based on customers’ locations.
- Moving an ever-growing portion of bills into fixed charges lowers incentives to invest in efficiency. (See your combined Louisville Water Co. and Metro Sewer District bill. Fixed charges make up 60% to 70% of the typical household’s bill; conserving water has relatively little effect on the total bill.)
- Increasing energy conservation and efficiency have been sound public policies in place in Kentucky for decades. Any increases to LG&E should support those policies by going onto usage charges. Doing otherwise is unfair to customers who invest in efficiency or solar panels, turn their thermostats down, put on a sweater, etc.
- Paying or crediting solar customers at the wholesale rate for their excess daytime power is incoherent. Wholesale power generators require costly transmission lines across long distances to get power to LG&E, which costs it much more. LG&E incurs little to no cost when rooftop solar power flows to neighboring homes or businesses.
- Interest rates are record low now; utility stocks are very attractive investments. LG&E doesn’t need a higher Return on Equity to attract investors.
The PSC shouldn’t let LG&E maximize its stockholders’ returns on the backs of captive customers, especially during a global pandemic with extreme unemployment.
Please make your voice heard
- Send email to info@psc.ky.gov and include “Case 2020-00350” in your subject line.
- Explain in your own words why these proposed hikes would be a hardship on you, your family and your community. Ask the PSC to balance LG&E’s monopoly powers and guaranteed profits with the reason it was created: to provide affordable, essential services to all customers.
- Copy a few of your local and state officials. (Find them here.)
- Ask your family and friends to follow your leadership!
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