Letter to the Editor – EPB Rates & TVA

Dear Editor,

At the August Glasgow EPB board meeting the Superintendent Billy Ray presented 2 items to the board. One being the signing of a new contract with TVA with a 3.1% discount that will require a 20 year notice to leave them, currently it requires a 5 year notice to leave them. The most likely reason for the new TVA contract is Memphis Tn is looking into leaving them. Memphis is their largest customer using 10% of the electric that TVA produces. I would believe If Memphis leaves TVA would have to raise their rate to make up for the lost revenue . If that 20 year contract is signed there would be no limit to the rate increases we could see. TVA doesn’t have to play on a level playing field, they are a self regulated Federal monopoly. All the other power producers in this country are regulated by the state they produce power in. I would suggest everyone google “TVA bonuses” and see what they have done for the past 5 years. All options for receiving power from other providers needs to be explored before considering signing a 20 year contract with TVA. The second item is raising the customer charge. One of the things the EPB agreed to do was to lower the customer charge $5.00 and they took that back this past January. When this rate was implemented on the first day of 2016 the EPB said the $27.56 customer charge covered their fixed costs and the kwh charges was the wholesale cost that TVA charges the EPB with no markup. That statement was repeated many times over the course of the first 3 years of this rate, by the management, staff, board, employees and their spouses. Now they say the $27.56 customer charge only covers 61% of the fixed cost? I can’t say what other people believe but, I believe when someone tells me something its is the truth or a lie. In this case I feel I was lied to for 3 years. Now for the folks that don’t understand the effect of a high customer charge this is an explanation. This is just rounded off easy to understand numbers, not the amounts we are currently billed. This is assuming a $40.00 customer charge. If approved by the board over the next 3 years it will be raised to over $45.00. Based on an average use of 1000 kwhs with a net total cost of 10 cents a kwh an electric bill would be. Usage 1000 kwhs, customer charge $40.00 + 6 cents per kwh = $100.00.The results of this on various usage would be. 500 kwhs total bill $70.00, net charge per kwh 14cents. 1000 kwhs total bill $100.00, net charge per kwh 10 cents. 2000 kwhs total bill $160.00, net charge per kwh 8 cents. 4000 kwhs total bill $280.00′ net charge per kwh 7 cents. Those 500 kwh users would most likely be single senior citizens living in a small 1 bedroom senior apartment and living on a Social Security check that could be less than $1,000.00 a month. The 4000 kwh user would most likely be a family of 4 living in a 4000sf home, with a household monthly income of $10,000. It would take the combined usage of 8 of those 500 kwh users with a total cost of $560.00 per month to equal the usage of that 1 4000 kwh user that has a total cost of $280.00 per month. These examples I just gave are not anyone’s personal electric bills and don’t include the 1 hour monthly demand charge. Over the past soon to be 4 years I have seen EPB electric portion only bills that range with a net kwh cost as low as 8 cents and as high as 15 cents. All other providers in this area residential users would vary no more than 1 cent per kwh. The rates are the responsibility of the EPB Board and not the management. The EPB Board represents all of the customers and that includes the unknown number of customers that don’t approve this rate structure. For the past soon to be 4 years all the phone calls and complaints about the rates should have been handled by the EPB Board members and not the staff. I’m on the variable rate and my monthly demand most months is no more than 0.5 kwh and if I was a customer of FRECC I would be paying less and not dealing with these peak predictions. Being this is an on going city issue that they have failed to fix the city shouldn’t be in the electric business. If FRECC has the capacity it should be sold to them if they would want it. This has been done before. Around 2007 Monticello Ky was like Glasgow a city owned provider receiving their electric from TVA . They sold out to a co-op. I would like to make a request to the EPB an item to be put on the agenda. At this months board meeting before any business is conducted any and all customer that would like to speak to the board be allowed to do so. I’m sending this letter to both of our local publications. If anyone receives any phone call claiming to be me verify who that person is.

Johnny Dilley