Regulators approve major electric rate increase for Old Dominion Power

The State Corporation Commission has approved a rate increase for the roughly 30,000 Southwest Virginians who get their electricity from Old Dominion Power, with the bump set to go into effect May 1.

In their April 6 order, regulators allowed the utility, which is the Virginia unit of Kentucky Utilities and the state’s smallest investor-owned utility, to increase its annual revenue by $9 million. The company has calculated that the average residential customer using about 1,250 kilowatts of power will see their monthly bill rise 15.4 percent, or $21.40.

During hearings and in testimony, a number of citizens and local governments, including the Wise County Board of Supervisors, decried the rate hike as “one of the highest proposed by any investor-owned utility in the country in the past year, and the second-highest proposed increase for the average residential customer.”

At an October hearing in Norton, Big Stone Gap Mayor Gary Johnson spoke against the increase, saying, “We have gone through an economical development downhill fast here, and how in the world can I ask outside investors to come into my part and pay such an outrageous electrical bill that they’re going to be paying?”

Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2020/04/16/regulators-approve-electric-rate-increase-for-old-dominion-power/