Austin Energy (AE) customers will see an 8% decrease in the fuel charge portion of their utility bills--effective with bills beginning January 1, 2007. The fuel charge represents about one-third of the standard electric bill.
The current fuel charge of 3.634 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) will be reduced to 3.343 cents/kWh. This means that for a residential customers using the system average of 1,000 kWh per month, their monthly utility bill will decrease by about $2.91, or about $35 a year.
Austin Energy’s fuel charge recovers the cost of fuel used for generating energy and purchased power for retail sales, and for certain related Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) costs. The fuel charge is a dollar-for-dollar cost pass-through to our utility customers. There is no profit applied to the Austin Energy fuel charge.
The January 1, 2007 change in the Austin Energy fuel charge does not affect the price of power received through Austin Energy’s green power program, GreenChoice. The fuel charge is replaced on GreenChoice purchases by a GreenChoice Charge which stays fixed for the life of AE contracts for wind-generated power. Those contracts are generally 10-years in length.
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For more information, contact Ed
Clark, Public Information.
Phone: (512) 322-6514
Pager: (512) 802-2000