Georgetown electric bills lowered due to power cost adjustment reduction

City of Georgetown electric customers will see a slight reduction in their energy bills due to a power cost adjustment that will take effect in June.

The power cost adjustment, or PCA, will be reduced from $0.01 to $0.0015 per kilowatt-hour beginning June 1. A typical Georgetown electric customer uses about 2,000 kilowatt-hours per month, said Cindy Pospisil, a collection agent in the City of Georgetown Utility Billing office. The average customer could expect to save roughly $17 from his or her previous electric bill.

The $0.01 PCA went into effect Sept. 1 in order to compensate Georgetown Utility Systems for the increased cost of wholesale power, which is not included in the base electric rate. Electric customers will still pay their base rate, which is $0.1046 per kilowatt-hour, Pospisil said.

"The PCA is a recovery mechanism for the fluctuating cost of wholesale power," she said. "We buy power wholesale, and the cost of that power goes up and down depending on the price of natural gas. Sometimes it costs us more than what our rate is to the consumer, so [the PCA] helps us recover that cost."

The PCA will increase or decrease depending on the components of the electric utility's fuel supply. The PCA was implemented six or seven years ago as a way to compensate the city of Georgetown for the price increases involved in purchasing bulk power from wholesale suppliers, Pospisil said.

The PCA is now being reduced because the utility company has recovered the money lost due to the increase in wholesale costs from last summer.

"The wholesale power was really expensive last summer, so we have spent the winter recovering the costs from that," Pospisil said. "Now we're in another cycle, it normally fluctuates up and down depending on the season."

While the PCA will drop at the beginning of June, Pospisil said that does not guarantee the cost will stay the same throughout the summer.

The city purchases energy from wholesale suppliers such as the Lower Colorado River Authority, CPS Energy of San Antonio and AEP Co. Inc.