To keep the fan and lights on in her Chattanooga apartment this summer, Amy Smith was out Monday begging EPB for more time to pay her electric bill and for those passing by on the street to give her a donation.
“I’ve got to come up with $46 and the only way I can do that is to get out here every day and panhandle for money,” the 51-year-old disabled woman said after meeting with EPB about her monthly light bill. “I don’t even run my air conditioner and I still can’t afford to pay these bills. They just seem to keep getting higher every month.”
After a recession-induced drop in power rates last year, the Tennessee Valley Authority said Monday that its electric rates will rise again in August for the sixth consecutive month. The latest monthly fuel cost increase will boost the typical residential electricity bill in Chattanooga by $1.44 a month, or 1.1 percent above the comparable rate this month.
Since February, TVA’s monthly fuel cost adjustment has pushed up electric rates by more than 20 percent. Although still below the peak price reached in October 2008, when fuel prices began to fall because of the economy, this year’s price increases have still given consumers such as Ms. Smith and others a cold chill when they open their monthly light bills.
Tommy Hobbs, a Signal Mountain resident, said he isn’t using his dryer this summer and keeps the thermostat at a higher temperature to limit his air conditioning consumption.
“We’re all trying to conserve these days,” he said Monday after paying his monthly EPB bill in downtown Chattanooga.
This summer’s above-average temperatures are making that harder for most homeowners. In June, the average temperature across TVA’s seven-state region was about 6 degrees above normal, boosting power usage as air conditioners strained to keep homes and offices cool.
TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said the hotter June – and expectations of above-normal temperatures in July and August – mean that TVA is having to purchase more power and fuel.
“The increase in the fuel-cost adjustment (for August) is primarily the result of substantially higher-than-expected fuel costs for June caused by much higher than normal temperatures,” Mr. Brooks said.
TVA cut it rates by more than 25 percent during 2009 and the first two months of 2010 as the price of natural gas, coal and purchased power fell along with the economy.
But TVA’s monthly fuel cost adjustment has increased steadily since March due to higher natural gas and purchased power costs and TVA’s replacement of higher long-term coal contracts, Mr. Brooks said.
TVA and other utilities have profited by increased electricity sales due to a colder winter and a hotter summer so far this year.
Nonetheless, overall power consumption is still below the 2007 peak. TVA expects to stay well below its all-time peak set during the summer of 2007 at 33,482 megawatts and Georgia Power Co. also doesn’t expect to get near its 2007 record peak of 17,985 megawatts.