El Paso Electric settles rate case, average monthly bill to rise by $2
The average monthly residential bill for electricity in El Paso will increase by about $2.20 under a rate increase settlement reached between El Paso Electric and the city of El Paso, both parties announced Tuesday.
The increase will go into effect in July, according to a city press release.
“The city is satisfied with the proposed settlement that will drastically reduce the impact to our residents,” City Attorney Karla Nieman said in a press release. “The city will continue to advocate for El Paso’s ratepayers and hold El Paso Electric accountable for requested rate increases.”
Under the electric company’s original rate increase request, the average residential customer might have seen an 11-13.4% increase, which translated to about $10 or $11 more per month per household.
In June 2021, El Paso Electric filed an application for a $41.8 million rate increase. The settlement, which must still be approved by the Public Utility Commission, reduces the rate increase by 68 percent -- or $28.3 million, city officials said.
In its rate filing, the utility said the rate increase was needed to pay for improvements El Paso Electric made to its generation, transmission and distribution system.
“While we still believe that the nearly $1 billion in investments we made in our infrastructure since 2017 was necessary for our customers,” El Paso Electric President and CEO Kelly Tomblin said in a statement, “we also understand that the increase we proposed would have been a burden for our customers who are dealing with a multitude of cost increases in other areas of their lives, including increased taxes, inflation and higher interest rates.”
The city and El Paso Electric had been working on a settlement since December. The city filed its objection to the rate increase in October.
Disclosure: Kelly Tomblin is a financial supporter of El Paso Matters.
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
