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By Jed Duvall
Special to the Rappahannock News
First, the good news.
Rappahannock County customers of Allegheny Power will not see a price rise.
Not this year.
Not next year and not before July 1 of 2007.
Now for the bad news.
A fuel price surcharge imposed by the Rappahannock Electric Cooperative will mean significant increases for residential users through the summer and fall.
The prices of coal and gas used to fire the electric plants are rising along with the world prices of crude oil.
The manner in which utilities react to these price pressures differs.
Allegheny Power, according to spokesman Allen Staggers, has its prices “We have a long term power sale agreement with our supplier of electricity,” said Staggers.
“The higher cost of fuel hurts them,” he added. Some 3,700 households in Rappahannock County are customers of Allegheny Power.
The Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, explained Matt Faulconer, Director of Public Relations, has a cap on production and delivery of electricity.
Those basic rates, he added, have not changed since 1992. But, Faulconer continued, there is no cap on what the Cooperative labels the “fuel factor”.
This fuel factor changes each month for the roughly one thousand members of the Cooperative in Rappahannock County.
Figuring an average household use of 1,250 kilowatt hours per month, the fuel factor added just under $8.00 per month in May of 2003.
In July of this year, that fuel factor will add $24.06 to the same average bill.
Looking ahead, Faulconer warned that “we see a steady increase from now to the end of this year,” A projected increase of just 25 percent, a
95.7%