Recently, Kansas City Power & Light announced they could potentially generate an additional $62.9 million a year in revenue, according to company spokeswoman Courtney Hughley.
How you may ask? It would be as a result of a 7.5 percent rate increase that will be passed along to consumers of theirs.
Currently, the national average for rate hikes is right at 4%. The proposed 7.5% nearly doubles that, in addition to the possibility of electric rates rising as well.
The utility company, a subsidiary of Great Plains Energy filed the rate increase request in late June with the Missouri Public Service Commission.
Overview
Per a recent new release with Kansas City Power & Light, the request is needed to recover money spent upgrading the company’s infrastructure, adding regional transmission lines, and complying with environmental and cybersecurity mandates.
If the commission approves the request, the monthly bill for an average customer will go up about $9 a month.
KCP&L commented that the rate wouldn’t go into effect until April of 2017 due the process for a rate request taking some time.
The increase would affect customers in the KCP&L Missouri service area, which encompasses the Kansas City area. Although, it is to be noted that people in Missouri who were served Aquila before the 2008 acquisition will not be affected.
Summary
This past February, the utility company asked for an 8.2% rate increase for those customers of Aquila and the commission is still mulling that request.
With this recent rate request, this marks KCP&L’s 7th one in the past 10 years for the Missouri service area. In September, they won an 11.7% increase, which bumped up average bills about $12 a month.
There seems to be much uncertainty as to whether or not this will pass, but the bigger question is do you have a plan of action to combat, should this rate increase?
