PPL Electric Utilities has requested the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission for permission to offer customers a second option for spreading out higher electricity prices.
Electricity prices will be higher starting in 2010 for PPL Electric Utilities’s customers following the expiration of a rate cap on the cost of electricity supply that was part of a 1998 agreement between the company and the state.
PPL Electric Utilities does not generate electricity and is required to purchase electricity in a competitive market, and pass through the cost of that electricity without profit, for customers who choose not to shop for their own supply.
PPL Electric Utilities said that it already offers an advance payment phase-in option that lets residential and small-business customers adjust gradually to higher electricity prices. About 140,000 customers signed up for that option in 2008.
If approved by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, the deferral option would enable eligible residential and small-business customers to defer payment of any increase on their 2010 electric bills that is expected to be greater than 25% based on the company’s current estimates.
David DeCampli, president of PPL Electric Utilities, said: Our plan, if approved, would give eligible customers the option of deferring payments on a portion of the higher electricity prices that will take effect January 1, 2010, after more than a decade of capped rates.
