An estimated 5.5 percent increase in rates for Baltimore Gas and Electric customers expected later this year is more in line with what customers can expect year-to-year with Maryland now fully moved into the wholesale energy market, the utility company said Wednesday.
The increase comes as a result of BGE?s soliciting of bids for its energy supply for June through September of this year. Approximately 75 percent of the supply for October through May 2009 has been bid out, said Mark Case, BGE vice president of regulatory affairs. Another auction for the remaining 25 percent is planned for April, and depending on the price, the 5.5 percent increase could move slightly up or down, Case said.
BGE customers have seen their rates jump more than 70 percent since entering the wholesale market two years ago. Case said this increase represents the first of more moderate year-to-year changes.
“I think going forward we?re going to see little increases going up and going down. That?s the way the natural gas market moves ? and I think for electricity we’ll see those movements as well,” he said.
The most recent auction was held Jan. 14, and saw prices increase from 14.3 cents per kilowatt-hour to about 15 cents. As a result, the state?s Public Service Commission estimated the price would result in the 5.5 percent rate increase this summer, according to spokeswoman LaWanda Edwards.
Edwards said the increase would add about $100 to the average customer?s annual utility bill.
Leo Burroughs Jr., chairman of the Maryland Coalition to Stop the BGE Rate Hike Now, said the increase was “intolerable,” despite being smaller than the large jumps of the last few years.
“There is no excuse, given the obscene, extreme profits given the obscene profits of BGE and Constellation,” Burroughs Jr. said. “It is not fair to working people ? and for senior citizens it?s catastrophic.”
