by William Crum
At tonight’s Board of Public Utilities meeting, Murrel Bland of Business West spoke during the visitors’ time to ask the BPU to keep the cost of utilities down.
Business West is a group of small businesses in Kansas City, Kan.
There is a proposed 4 percent electric rate hike for next year, according to a public notice.
The BPU has published a public notice that stated it will have a public hearing on a rate increase at 7 p.m. Jan. 24 at the BPU board room, 540 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City, Kan. The public hearing will continue at 9 a.m. Jan. 25 at the same location.
Testimony is scheduled on the technical aspects after the 9 a.m. Jan. 25 public hearing , according to the public notice.
According to the public notice, the BPU board will not make a decision on the proposed rate hike until after the public hearing.
The charges that individual BPU customers experience may vary from the annual 4 percent average amount that is proposed, according to BPU’s public notice.
According to the BPU’s public notice, the proposed changes include:
• Shifting the definition of summer from the May through August billing period to the June through September billing period.
• Modifying the calculation of winter period billed demand to be the maximum of current month actual demand or 70 percent of the previous summer peak demand.
• Adding an electric heating option to all commercial rates with a modified method of calculating billed demand in which the winter period billed demand will be the minimum of the current month’s demand or the previous summer peak demand.
• Modifying the Environmental Surcharge (ESC) rider to recover 1.3 times the annual debt service payment in the ESC.
• Modifying the timing of the Reconciliation Adjustment in the ESC to Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
• Modifying the Energy Rate Component (ERC) rider to include chemical expenses related to electric production.
• Eliminating seasonal energy charges for non-electric heating rate classes.
• Addition of a rate for standby service for customers with self-generation.
• Addition of an event lighting rate for certain stadium lighting that is limited to a certain number of events per year.
• Addition of a general service high load factor rate.
• Addition of a new lighting rate for LED lights.
Also at tonight’s meeting, Rubin Brown gave an audit report.
General Manager Don Gray talked about the upcoming budget meeting.