“Customers have benefited from stable, capped electric rates since October 1999. During that time, the costs of fuels used to generate electricity have risen significantly ? leading to the significant increases reflected in the new ? rates.”
Sound familiar? If you live in Maryland and are a BGE customer, you?ve probably read or heard a similar explanation more than a dozen times: Electricity rates have been capped at artificially “low” prices for years. Deregulation is just a painful adjustment to the real costs of energy. And now that the price of fuel has gone up, you, the electric customer, will be sharing the pain.
But the quotation above comes from the Web site of Delmarva Power, the primary supplier of electricity just across the Maryland state line. Its resemblance to the Maryland situation shows that the problem of rising power rates isn?t just a local phenomenon.
Delaware customers will see a 59 percent increase in their utility bills this summer, with an expected average annual increase of $621 per customer. By comparison, Maryland customers will experience a 72 percent increase, expected to cost an average of $743 more annually.
The timing, seven years after Delaware?s General Assembly passed its own deregulation plan, means that customers just down the road will be feeling the pain at the same time Marylanders do. The only difference is that Delaware legislators passed a phase-in plan that automatically enrolls state residents May 1, while Maryland?s program is set up to allow consumers to opt in ? or not. Delaware?s plan phases in increases over two years, similar to Maryland?s just-approved rate stabilization plan.
Pennsylvania seems to have avoided the rate increase controversy by starting the pain earlier. The Pennsylvania legislature passed a deregulation plan in 1996. Prices for Pennsylvania companies vary widely, and can depend on where you live, from $21.43 for Allegheny Power to $68.05 for renewable energy from Pepco.
