JOPLIN, Mo. —
Missouri customers of Empire District Electric Co. will begin paying 13.4 percent more for service in September, the same month that the company will file for yet another rate hike.
The Missouri Public Service Commission said Thursday that the increase, effective Sept. 10, will raise the average residential customer’s bill about $13 a month.
The PSC, the state’s utility regulatory panel, approved the $46.8 million increase in May, contingent on Empire’s Plum Point power plant in Arkansas coming on line by Aug. 15. If the company had missed the deadline, the increase would have been closer to $33 million, which would have cost the average residential customer 9.4 percent more than he pays now.
In a company statement, Bill Gipson, president and CEO, said: “The new rates will allow us to begin recovery of the costs associated with the environmental upgrades at Iatan 1 and the new Plum Point Generating Station. These additions will allow us to continue to provide reliable service to our customers with a balanced mix of resources using the least cost options.”
Empire originally sought an increase of about 20 percent. The city of Joplin was among intervenors in the rate case, with local officials opposing the amount being sought.
At a public hearing conducted by the PSC, Howard Blackburn, of Webb City, was among those who spoke against the hike. In May, he told the Globe that he was unhappy that the PSC had approved any rate hike. He characterized the company’s profits in 2009 as “huge.”
“They always ask for 20 percent and then act like they’re helping people when they get less,” Blackburn said last spring. “They get more money to cover higher costs, but nobody else does.”
Because of construction delays, recovery of the company’s costs related to the new Iatan 2 generating plant — which originally was sought in the current case — has been postponed until the next case in Missouri.
Empire plans to file that rate case in mid- to late September. The Globe’s efforts to obtain the amount of the planned rate-hike request were unsuccessful Thursday night.
The coal-fired Iatan 2 plant is being constructed next to the older Iatan Generating Station north of Kansas City on the Missouri-Kansas border.
Empire serves about 148,000 customers in Missouri, mostly in the southwestern part of the state.
Empire District
The Joplin-based company is an investor-owned utility providing electric; natural gas, through a wholly owned subsidiary, Empire District Gas Co.; and water service. It has about 215,000 customers in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Another subsidiary also provides fiber-optic services.
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