Pepco is bucking a proposal to ease the burden of rising electricity prices on its hardest-hit customers during the winter, arguing instead that the government should come up with more money to help residents pay their bills.
The D.C. Public Service Commission is considering whether Pepco and Washington Gas should be required to offer crisis payment options for their financially struggling customers during the upcoming winter heating season, in response to the tanking economy and projected increases in electricity and natural gas prices.
Washington Gas was the subject of a similar order during the 2005-2006 winter, during which it deferred payment of security deposits for a month, waived reconnection charges for three months, expanded customer education efforts and made more customers eligible to use its budget payment plan. Roughly 1,300 natural gas customers who otherwise would have faced disconnection were spared because of the plan, according to a report filed in June 2006.
The gas utility has said it supports reviving those efforts to help its customers through “this economically difficult period.” But Pepco, which was excused from participation in 2006 because electricity prices were still capped, is not on board.
Such “stopgaps will only increase the amount [customers] owe later and will make it more difficult to pay,” said Robert Dobkin, Pepco spokesman.
“What is needed is additional financial support from federal, state and local governments to assist customers in paying their energy bills,” Pepco counsel Anthony Wilson wrote in comments to the commission.
Existing Pepco efforts include “direct customer interaction,” the Residential Aid Discount program, public notices and bill inserts.
These programs, Wilson wrote, “assist customers directly in order to avoid disconnection, get reconnected and to meet their bill payment responsibility.”
Pepco estimates electricity prices will rise 10 percent this winter over last, while Washington Gas predicts its customers will face 10 to 20 percent increases.
Federal income guidelines restrict access to the D.C. government energy assistance program, and there’s “not a ton” the city can do for a person who struggles with bills but still earns a decent salary, said Alan Heymann, spokesman for the D.C. Department of the Environment. But a family of four whose income drops below $42,943 because of a layoff, for example, would be eligible for a subsidy.
