What is up? Your Electric bill

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Light bulb onWell, after talking to a few folks around the area, it seems like electric bills have taken a HUGE spike higher recently.  One obvious reason would be the extremely cold temperatures we had around here in January.  I know in our house, the heat stayed on constantly just to keep it semi-warm.  Since we primarily use natural gas, however, it didn’t have an effect on our electric bill as much.

Also, I’ve noticed that several of the complaints about higher electric bills have been coming from the folks who are on Licking Valley RECC.  I have talked to a few folks who have Kentucky Power, however, and they have seen a pretty drastic increase this winter, as well.

Could another possible reason for the price hikes be to help offset the costs that came with all of the cleanup and repairs involved in the ice storm early last year?  At least some portion of the increase is because of the recent approval by the Kentucky Public Service Commission to allow Kentucky’s Rural Electric Cooperatives to increase rates by up to 15%.  Kentucky Power has also made a request for as much as a 35% increase, but I’m not sure that it has been approved yet.

What I am curious about is a true comparison of THIS year’s bills versus LAST year’s bills.  Would anybody be able and willing to dig back through their bills from last winter so we can do some comparisons?  If so, please leave a comment on this thread and tell us about what you find.  Specifically, if you could find what your RATE was last year, as compared to this year, it might help determine if the increases are due to the electric companies or to Mother Nature.

I’ll post more on the topic as we move along, but if anyone has some numbers to throw this way, I’d LOVE to see ’em…

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  • Vanessa

    I am a single woman who does not heat with electricity and my electric bill has been twice what it should have been since the ice storm. I even did an experiment over the past Summer where I dd not use my AC and just used a window fan and my bill did not decrease. This winter I turned off my electric and heated with a Kerosene heater and my bill is still almost 200 hundred dollars! The Licking Valley RECC is ripping us off and they know that we can’t do anything about it because there are no other options for our electricity supplier. Yet, with the never fail power outages we suffer all year long it has caused me to have to replace my computer three times over the last 5 years. But they say that they are not responsible for the costs because it is an act of nature or “God” if you will. Why are we responsible for those same acts and they are not! I am irate because I know that we are being taken advantage of and there seems to be nothing that us poor people on limited incomes can do about it. I am just plain pissed!!!!