Tuesday, Mar. 09, 2010

High utility bills stoke anger

SCE&G says weather, not its rates, to blame

Many Midlands residents are struggling to pay high heating bills, an unwanted legacy of the area's fourth-coldest winter.

It could be worse. But that's little comfort for Monica Davis. Her two-month power bill, since Jan. 1, was nearly $530 despite new windows and weatherstripping that lowered energy use at her home in Cayce.

"It's put a financial strain on me," she said. "I don't know how I'm going to get it paid."

A local charity chipped in $150 to help, but "resources are scarce," said Davis, who attends Columbia College as part of a midlife career change.

High bills also are putting the heat on South Carolina Electric & Gas. That Cayce-based utility is seeking a $197.6 million electric rate hike that, by July 2011, would add $11.69 a month to the average residential bill.

Nearly 230 S.C. homeowners and businesses have filed written protests to state officials opposing that increase.

The main objection? The utility's rate hike request is insensitive to the plight of many homeowners, struggling to just eke through The Great Recession.

"The timing is very inappropriate," said retiree Bill Boyne of St. Andrews. "They should be told to wait awhile, until things are better."

SCE&G officials said the hike is needed to pay for $700 million in federally ordered reductions in air pollution at its power plants and a previously undisclosed extra $54 million needed to pay for a backup dam at Lake Murray.

Some consumers also are angry to belatedly discover SCE&G already has won approval for a series of rate hikes that, by 2019, will boost the average residential bill by $40 a month to help pay for two nuclear power reactors.

SCE&G says starting to pay for the reactors now - rather than when they start producing power - will mean lower bills for homeowners in the long run.

But some customers say that is unfair, noting the reactors have not received final approval from federal regulators.

"We're being charged for it, and they don't even have the license to run it yet," said Danielle Rea-Deary, head of FDR & Associates, a property management firm in Columbia.

Many of her firm's 100 tenants already can't afford to pay both rent and winter power bills, leaving them to choose between losing shelter or heat as rates continue to go up, she said.

Another rate increase is "almost unconscionable," she said.

To make it easier for its 655,000 electric customers to adjust, SCE&G is proposing its $197.6 million rate hike be spread in three stages over 18 months.

Consumers, however, still are displeased.

SCE&G's rate-hike request offers consumers "a place to vent" about the rising cost of living, said Dukes Scott, chief of the state Office of Regulatory Staff, which reviews utility rate increases and represents consumers' interests.

The sheer number of complaints suggests the utility's rate-hike proposal will become "the highest profile case" facing state officials in a generation, Scott said.

But SCE&G officials say their request must be viewed separately from the impact of this winter's unusual chill on consumers' wallets.

The current jump in heating bills reflects "lower temperatures, not higher rates," SCE&G spokesman Eric Boomhower said.

Monthly temperatures were 14 degrees colder this winter, on average, than a year ago, he said. The National Weather Service says the average - 40 degrees - was four degrees cooler than a 60-year average.

Heat pumps - a major feature in many area homes - become "very inefficient" and run virtually nonstop when temperatures stay below 38 degrees, Boomhower said.

SCE&G is stepping up efforts to assist those in need, Boomhower said. It helped distribute $1.1 million in heating aid in January, nearly double the level of a year ago, he said.

Area residents will get their chance to sound off on the rate hike proposal to the state Public Service Commission - the agency that will decide on it by mid-July - at a hearing May 24.

Davis hopes the seven PSC members listen to the message that she and others are sending in their protests.

"If enough people put their two cents in, they have to be conscious of that," she said. "SCE&G may get something, but not the whole amount."

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