PLAINFIELD — Duke Energy has filed a rate increase request with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to increase its annualized revenue by $395 million, for an overall average rate increase of about 15% across all customer groups.
If approved, the increase will be added to bills in two steps, approximately 13% in mid-2020 and 2% in 2021.Timing will depend on state regulatory commission action.
The increase will vary among consumers depending on the cost to serve different types of customers. If approved by the commission, the company’s typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month could expect a monthly bill increase of about $23, or approximately 77 cents per day, which includes both steps of the increase.
“We’ve made investments to meet the needs of a customer base that has grown by more than 100,000 since our last full-scale rate review,” said Duke Energy Indiana President Stan Pinegar. “We also have environmental responsibilities and are taking significant steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and move to a cleaner power generation mix. And we are upgrading our electric grid to improve reliability, help avoid power outages and speed service restoration when outages do occur.”
To help customers save on their electric bills, the company is proposing a pilot program with time-of-use rates where customers can lower their bills on high power demand days by shifting their power usage to times of day when energy is less expensive.
The regulatory review process will include an opportunity for public comment.
For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Republic.
