Working Hard to Keep Your Electric Rates Down
What has the City of Washington done to keep rates down?
- Implemented residential load management and industrial customer generation to reduce the need to purchase high-price peak-period electricity
- Streamlined operations and maintenance
- Keeping vacancies open.
- Investing in staff training to enhance skill level
- Using outside contractors, rather than maintaining extra staff, for construction projects and storm response
- Undertaking system improvements to improve operating efficiency and reduce power losses
- Reducing residential rates by 5% to give customers some immediate rate relief when operating costs decreased in 1999 (due to local debt retirement)
- From 1990 to January 2003, absorbed cummulative wholesale rate increases totalling 19.5% instead of passing on these higher costs to customers.
- Continuing to improve operating efficiency, such as exploring use of automated meter reading
- Exploring regionalization. Can cities in the electric business save money by sharing resources? Washington and Kinston are participating in a pilot project in association with ElectriCities.
- Continuing to provide quality service at a reasonable price to our customers.
- In 2008, debt service on power plant construction will begin going down. Electric rate reductions may be possible at that time.
--Revised April 2003, Communications Office
The FACTS about Electric Deregulation in North Carolina