Florida Breaking News
Different Utilities, But Rate Hikes Look the Same 11/25
FPL Residential Bills to Dip a Bit in 2004 11/18
Different Utilities, But Rate Hikes Look
the Same
(November 25) There are shocks from electricity and shocks from
electricity prices. Avoid the former. Brace for the latter.
Florida's "Big 3" electric utilities - Progress Energy
Florida, Tampa Electric and Florida Power & Light - are slowly but surely raising the
price of electricity for their residential customers. Prices may seem to dip and rise
seasonally, and can even drop significantly for a while. But over time, electric rates
seem headed in one direction.
Up.
In 1995, for example, the average of the Big 3's residential
rates for 1,000-kilowatt hours was $80.30. (It takes about 1,400 KWH to power an average
home for a month.) That average rate rose quickly to $89.77 in 2001, dipped in 2002, then
jumped again.
Come January 2004, the Big 3's average will be $91.52, a 14
percent increase from 1995 and a record for recent years. The rising price for electricity
reflects the underlying higher costs of the oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power that
are the four fuels used in Florida by power companies to generate most of their
electricity. The differences in each of the Big 3's prices also indicate the types of fuel
the utilities use, as well as their deal making skills in purchasing power from others and
their skill at managing their expenses.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
FPL Residential Bills to Dip a Bit in 2004
(November 18) On Nov. 14, the Florida Public Service Commission
approved a rate decrease for FPL, the power-generating arm of Juno Beach-based FPL Group
Inc. Residential bills are expected to drop 30 cents to an average of $86.43 for each
1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a month.
FPL and the state's other major utilities in August filed their
annual predictions of customer bills in 2004, known as a fuel adjustment clause. The
company said it expects the adjustment to increase because of the continuing high price of
oil and natural gas, but that hike will be offset by decreases in energy conservation
costs as well as the cost to purchase power.
The PSC heard testimony on FPL's rate decrease as well as rate
increases for two other utilities -- Progress Energy Florida and Tampa Electric Co. --
this week. FPL is the state's largest utility with 3.5 million customers, and Progress
Energy and TECO are the state's second- and third-largest.
"They do a lot of estimating in this, and when the actual
numbers come in, they are trued up," said Charlie Beck, interim public counsel.
"Things are constantly turning over, and they are trying to make their best guesses
for the future and trying to make it right."
FPL does not profit on fuel used to generate electricity; the
increases or decreases are directly passed through to the customer.
FPL's customer bills next year will reflect higher fuel costs of
$345 million, which the company did not charge to consumers in 2003. Customers will see
little change in their bills from that amount being carried over, the company said.
However slight the decrease, it is a change from the hikes in
customer bills earlier this year, which FPL said were necessary because of soaring natural
gas prices.
The cost of natural gas has jumped more than 18 percent this
year, and it is likely to remain high for the foreseeable future, officials say.
Source: The Palm Beach Post
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