Price Gouging? Ratepayers Express Shock Over Exorbitant Electric Bills
David Crigger/Bristol Herald Courier
Bristol Virginia Utilities customer Richard Shortt’s December bill totals $511.98, more than twice the amount of his November bill, which was $251.34.
Some Bristol residents are steamed over electricity bills that are taking an unprecedented bite out of their wallets when the economy is at its worst in decades.
“I live alone, and my bill went from about $113 last month to $251 this month,” Donnie Hicks of Bristol, Tenn., said as he sat in his truck Friday after paying his bill at the Bristol Tennessee Essential Services. “I leave the thermostat at 68 degrees, and I’m not home two weekends a month. All I know is that if it’s higher next month, I’ll go back in there and bellyache.”
Bonnie Hyland and her husband, John, have lived in Blountville for about seven years. They said they realize it’s winter and temperatures are dropping and that could cause bills to rise. But their December bill is the highest they’ve ever seen.
“It’s just amazing,” Bonnie Hyland said Friday at BTES’ main office. “Our bill last month was about $100; this month it’s $145. We use a wood stove, and we’re doing without just to pay these bills.”
Her husband said companies such as BTES and Bristol Virginia Utilities are monopolies and there’s not much people can do to have a voice in what they pay.
“I’m not thrilled,” John Hyland said. “They know they have us tucked in their pocket.”
In August, the Tennessee Valley Authority board approved an average 20 percent electric rate increase – mostly attributed to higher power production costs.
BVU and BTES, which supply about 50,000 customers in the area, buy their energy from TVA, and the authority’s rate increase is passed to customers through the “fuel cost adjustment,” which is changed quarterly to reflect what TVA pays for coal, natural gas and other sources to produce electricity.
In mid-November, TVA announced it will lower its surcharge for fuel costs effective Jan. 1. That change is expected to mean residential customers will see their bills drop between $4 and $8 a month, according to TVA officials.
But that news hasn’t eased the pain of higher electric bills.
Linda Laughlin, who lives with her husband in a small two-bedroom home, only uses BVU for electric service. Their most recent bill was $286, an increase over the previous month of $112, she said.
Brian Bolling, BVU vice president of customer service, said the National Weather Service has told the utility that November was the eighth-coldest on record for the area.
“It’s basic math,” he said about cold temperatures and higher electric bills. “You want the inside of your house to stay at 70 degrees, so you set the thermostat at 70. But it’s 55 outside, and that’s a 15-degree difference,” Bolling said. “Now, what if it’s 30 or 20? Your heating system has to work harder.
Also, people are seeing gas prices going down, but the cost of one of TVA’s most-used sources of energy – coal – is soaring.”
TVA sets a fuel cost that is passed down to utilities to cover what the authority pays to generate energy from coal, hydro-electric, natural gas and other sources.
COST BREAKDOWN BVU
The fuel cost on BVU bills is 1.891 cents per kilowatt hour.
BVU also charges a per-month residential customer charge of $8.10, which includes a nominal environmental charge.
Customers then are charged 8.499 cents per kilowatt hour for the first 1,000 kilowatt hours used, and 9.005 cents for each kilowatt hour above that 1,000.
(Those are rates effective in October 2008 for residential customers, and are slight increases from June 2008 based on the summary of rates posting on the BVU Web site.)
To determine kilowatt hours used, the previous meter reading is subtracted from the latest reading. But not all meters are the same. When they are read, the numbers might be used alone to determine kilowatts used but some meters are designed to use “multipliers.” In other words, the meter reading will be multiplied by a number, such as 10 or 100, to determine the actual kilowatt hours used. This is what is meant on your bill when you see the word, “multiplier.”
COST BREAKDOWN BTES
BTES’ base charges include a $6.42 a month customer charge, for delivering power to the home. Then, the energy charge for the first 1,000 kilowatt hours used includes about 6.544 cents per kilowatt, plus a three-tenths of a cent per kilowatt environmental charge.
TVA’s 1.933 cent per kilowatt hour “fuel cost adjustment” is then added, bringing BTES’ total charge to about 8.777 cents per kilowatt hour.
When more than 1,000 kilowatt hours a month are used, a different formula kicks in. Additional kilowatt-hours a month are 7.099 cents. The environmental charge and fuel cost adjustment does not change, but this means the cost for any kilowatt hour over 1,000 is 9.332 cents.
Mathematics aside, the customers who contacted the Herald Courier said they just wanted to be able to make ends meet. That sentiment is noted in an e-mailed snippet from Mary Leonard (no relation to Don Leonard). It was written in all capital letters and replete with exclamation marks regarding BVU charges.
“GOD HELP US ...”
| (276) 645-2512
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
Here is some info. I found regarding the price of coal. It looks like we are in for more and more rate hikes due to the increasing cost of our most abundant natural resource. It seems that there is plenty of coal to go around. However getting it to the end user is adding to the costs. Not to mention the demand for the black stuff in China. I guess the best any of us can do is ‘batten down the hatches’ and get more dogs to sleep in the bed with us.
It looks like the coal companies may be knocking the oil companies off the pedestal for the richest companies on earth?
Best of Luck in 2009.
Predictions are 2009 will be a worse economic year than 2008. My electric bill sets a good example. What will we do when we can no longer pay? WE, the citizens are the only ones that can get the economy going again with hard earned tax dollars that the FED is determined to give away with bailouts.
These bailouts won’t help anything, can anyone prove me wrong?
The comment from (Whitey) is right on. It is my understanding that in 2009 BVUoptinet will no longer be able to use Embarq’s lines for their cable and phone services. This information comes from an Embarq employee, who, I feel is very knowledgeable about the subject.
Unfortunately we are at the mercy of the electric company. It’s either pay the bill, or do without power.
As my dad always said, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.“
We are feeling it in Johnson City too. Our bill last month was 109.00. Our bill this month was 197.00 and we keep our thermostat between 66 and 68 all winter long. It’s just absolutely ridiculous.
BTES also charges a fee every month if your meter isn’t attached to your house but sits on a pedestal base beside your home! You can call them and ask questions and be given the round around, they don’t have to cater to you, they are, as stated here, a single monopoly and you either pay or do without. Older people on fixed incomes who don’t get raises or have means to increase their incomes are just out of luck. And we read, not so long ago, about the TVA exec’s getting all that money—-I guess they work hard?? As hard or harder than my husband does?? They should be ashamed.
We are with the Elizabethton Electric Co…our usage for Nov went from 2240 in Oct to 4860 in Nov….$220 electric bill to $466. (In Nov of last year, it was 3030 kwh)!!! How does the electric company show their concern….they say, ‘if it goes thru your meter….you owe it!!!! We had a new heat pump, new water heater and new windows installed this summer….!!! What is Dec, Jan and Feb going to be? Help….I am definitely going to write Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander….
Thanks for letting me vent!
Patty
I urge anyone angry of their electric bills place the blame where it lies, with TVA.
Contact Sen Bob Corker and Sen. Lamar Alexander and demand that something be done to reign in TVA’a runaway bonus program for it’s top execs and to see to it that TVA board members who set our rates are “average” people who actually live in this region and whould have to pay the rates they set.
When “board members” have a vested interest in seeing a big profit because they are likely stockholders in TVA, something seems very wrong with that?
The whole mess is like a bucket of manure. The deeper you dig into it, the worse it stinks. TVA, the way it is set up, managed and controlled is rotten to the core.
The incoming President promised “change”, maybe you can convince him that TVA no longer serves the people in it’s present configuration?
If you want TVA to change, let your Congressmen have an earfull, loudly and repeatedly. And by the way, just wait till you are passed the bill for the big sludge cleanup!
Don’t waste your time trying to contact ‘the political leaders’. The ‘political leaders’ and the ‘utilities’ are one and the same.
The very best thing anyone can do is to conserve on a personal level. Either do that or live high on the hog. It’s all going to end in a couple of more years anyway. So enjoy yourself. The politicians certainly are. And they know what’s coming?????
Your electrical bills are helping the power companies build fiber optic networks to compete with the CATV and telephone companies. A service that the power companies are not chartered to provide. The power companies milked the tobacco funds to the point that they are now empty. And in order to keep their CATV and telephone service going they will skim money from the power side of the business.
And you are right. The local utility boards are not regulated by state or federal utility regulatory agencies. BTES is controlled by one man. The city of Bristol, Tennessee cannot touch him. The good Doctor is lord and master over his domain.
Keep subscribing to the power company’s CATV and telephone service. And when their meter bases cause your home appliances to burn out call them and see what kind of lie they tell you. Then you will be stuck with additional replacement costs to compliment your high power bills.
And wait, there is more. When TVA passes along the costs associated with that ash spill near Oak Ridge, TN you will have to sell your cow, and maybe an arm and leg of your wife, to pay the power bill.
TVA’s charter specifies that it will ‘make a profit’. And it does.
And take you a trip around BMS to enjoy the lights. After all, you paid to turn them on and keep them lit.
Good people. Large corporations do not pay taxes, expenses or other costs associated with running their business. Never have and never will. The ‘good ole fore fathers’ of our country took care of that a long time ago. It’s all a lie. A big fat lie.
Now put another log on the fire. My carbon output is a bit low this week.
Everyone needs to start contacting their political leaders , someone,somewhere has to be able to help us fight the suppliers of electricity !! TVA could start helping by eliminating un-neccessary tributes such as Speedway in Lights, while this is a wonderful cause , we the taxpayers should not have to suck up the cost of electricity it takes to make it a success, let BRUTON SMITH pay for it,Lord knows he can afford it.
Advertisement