OCR Text |
Show Bountiful power rates to be decreased for majority of home owners er rates has remained unchanged for 25 years or more," he said. "Yet events of the last 10 years have radically altered the electric power industry. The cost of service study pointed out that Bountiful's power rates were out of sync with economic realities of the 80's. It was time to change." "In today's energy markets, it isn't fair to charge small users a higher rate for using less electricity than the big users. Our old rate structure actually penalized the small users and gave no incentive to the large users to conserve," Mr. Michaelis explained. "Under the new rate structure, everyone will have equal incentive to use electricity efficiently," he added. The same philosophy applies to the commercial customers, Mr. Michaelis noted. The new rate structure will reward efficient users us-ers by reflecting the actual costs incurred by the power department to service the customers' electric loads. Mr. Michaelis emphasized the new rate structure will not generate additional revenues for the power department. The utility's overall budget remains the same; the allocation allo-cation of costs is merely being redistributed re-distributed to make rates reflect actual service costs. Mr. Michaelis said a mailing was made this week to all Bountiful electric customers explaining the new rate structure. Customers who have additional questions should call Vernile Hess at 295-94. Monthly power bills will go down for two-thirds of Bountiful households on May 1, based on a new rate structure adopted by the Bountiful City Council. The new rate structure is also good news for many small and medium-sized commercial customers. cus-tomers. Bountiful City Light and Power Director Clifford C. Michaelis said the changes are being made to align rates with the actual costs of supplying sup-plying electric service. While the majority of customers will see rate decreases, some will be required to pay more. "Fairness is the reason for the adjustment," Mr. Michaelis explained. ex-plained. "An in-depth study of the power department's costs of service ser-vice showed that high use customers custom-ers were paying less than their fair share and small users were paying more." The new rate structure means that all residential customers will pay a flat rate for the electricity they use: 4.94 cents per kilowatt hour. Under the old rate structure, the cost per kilowatt hour declined as usage increased. Mr. Michaelis said the "declining "declin-ing block" rate structure was appropriate when Bountiful had a power surplus and wanted to entourage en-tourage energy use. But the surplus sur-plus is gone and it costs more now to build new generating plants or purchase additional power. Customers who use less than 730 kilowatt hours per month will pay less under the new rate structure. Mr. Michaelis said 6, 100 of the utility's util-ity's 9,500 households fall into this category. Even under the new rates, high users will still pay about :0 percent less than they would in neighboring communities. "The basic structure ofourpow- |