Your electricity rate will not be going up – at least not right now. That’s the final decision of the Public Utilities Commission after a rigorous review of the report of the independent expert. After three days of meetings, the Commission was expected to announce its rates at 5:00 pm, but up to 6:15 pm, neither the media nor BEL had received it.
We did finally get it though just before news time. Decision 10 on customer tariffs states that, quote, “the PUC hereby disapproves any changes to the tariffs. The present tariffs shall remain in effect from July first 2008, to June 30, 2009.” That’s it, straight like that. No new service charges, now minor tweaking, nothing. The old rates are the new rates. Because we got it so late, we could not get comment from BEL but the PUC will have a press briefing tomorrow.
Ought to greatly please the government which has been trying to hold down the cost of living but its very bad news for BEL, which says it is behind in its payments to its Mexican power supply CFE. Speaking via telephone with president Lyn Young today, before the decision was released, he would only say that the company has been trying to seek an accommodation with CFE to give it time to pay. Beyond that he would not make any comments on rolling blackouts.
Again, its late breaking and we’ll have more on it tomorrow.
