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StumbleuponWINDSTORM AFTERMATH
DP&L rate hike may be coming to cover storm costs
DP&L may ask regulators to allow the company to pass costs of the storm response on to ratepayers.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Joey Calhoun of Hays, N.C., works on a power line along Runnymede Road near Thornhill Road in Oakwood on Saturday, Sept. 20.Dayton Power and Light Co. may ask state regulators to allow the utility to pass the costs of responding to the Sept. 14 storm on to ratepayers, a DP&L spokesman said.
But a consumer advocate said if utilities ask for a rate increase, they'd better be ready to prove they've been doing the routine maintenance necessary to minimize the storm's impact. And other consumer groups called on the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to investigate whether better preventative maintenance — including tree trimming and replacement of worn-out power poles — would have reduced the number and duration of outages wrought by the remnants of Hurricane Ike.
Asked if DP&L plans to approach PUCO for permission to pass on the storm-response costs to ratepayers, company spokesman Tom Tatham said, "That's a possibility. Our focus is on getting all the customers restored. Clearly, this is a costly effort. This was an unprecedented storm for us."
Tatham had no estimate of the storm's costs.
Duke Energy won't know for months what the storm emergency response cost, company spokeswoman Kathy Meinke said. It is too soon to say how the company will deal with that expense, she said.
"A rate case is an option," Meinke said. But, she added: "I have not heard any decision or plans. We are still in restoration mode."
PUCO Chairman Alan Schriber said it's "absurd" to think better maintenance would have made a difference in reducing damage from the "absolutely, unequivocally unprecedented" storm.
However, David Reinbolt, executive director of Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy, argues that Ohio utilities for years have been cutting back on needed preventative maintenance to boost their profits.
Before any rate hike, Reinbolt called upon utilities to "show me first that you've been spending all the money we've been paying you the last 20 years for maintenance."
"When a tree falls on a line, that's an act of God," he said. "When parts of the system fall apart because they haven't been maintained, you're violating the law and you're not following your responsibilities as a monopoly utility."
