Lower rates take effect in May
SMECO’s Board of Directors recently received approval for a decrease in the power supply rates that customer-members pay for their electric service. On February 28, SMECO submitted a filing to the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) to reduce its base energy charges by more than 10 percent for residential customers. The lower rates were approved by the PSC on April 22 and will go into effect on May 1, 2020.
“This rate reduction couldn’t have come at a better time. We know that many of our customer-members have been affected by the stay-at-home orders in Maryland and their income has been significantly impacted,” said Sonja Cox, SMECO president and CEO. “At 6.21 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), our residential base rate for May will be the lowest it has been in almost 15 years.”
The base rate for an average residential customer with 1,300 kWh of monthly usage will be $10.40 less this summer than last summer. “Lower rates have a positive effect on a household budget,” Cox said. “But for commercial accounts, schools, churches, and government buildings, whose facilities use a lot of energy, the savings can be considerable.”
SMECO’s Standard Offer Service (SOS) rate is made up of the energy charge and the Power Cost Adjustment (PCA). SMECO’s base residential energy charges for summer will decrease by 11 percent, from 6.98 cents per kWh to 6.21 cents per kWh. Summer energy charges appear on bills rendered May through September. Base residential winter energy charges will be reduced from 7.54 cents per kWh to 6.74 cents per kWh, a 10.6 percent reduction.
On SMECO’s monthly electric bills, lower power supply costs have been reflected in the PCA, which has been a credit for the last several months. The PCA, which changes monthly, is a credit of 0.8839 cents per kWh for April. The combination of the base energy charge and the PCA credit effectively reduces the SOS rate for April from 7.54 cents per kWh to 6.6561 cents per kWh.