Kilowatt Hour Cost Increases for Large Commercial PPL Customers

Large commercial and industrial electricity customers in PPL who are on a variable rate will see an increase on their electric bills in August due to an increase in their kilowatt hour cost.  Many PPL (Pennsylvania Power and Light) commercial customers who are on default service and are under the PPL rate class of MP, MT, or L5 have their rate directly tied into the wholesale energy market.

From January until June 2010 these default customers have enjoyed low default rates as the wholesale prices have averaged between $0.06 and $0.08 cents per kilowatt hour over the period.  However, in July these rates got out of hand and were as much as $0.30 cents per kilowatt during some hours.  Many of these MP and MT rate class customers can expect their kilowatt hour cost to be above $0.10 when their August bill arrives.

These large commercial and industrial energy users did not have an incentive to shop the competitive market for low electric rates because the floating rate that they were receiving were so low.  Now that these variable rates have increased, many of these commercial electricity customers will shop the market for low fixed electric rates from an electricity company offering competitive supply rates.  Large commercial electricity customers can find fixed rates as low as $0.073 per kilowatt hour, which can help these customers budget against volatile energy prices.

Current wholesale prices for electricity for PPL can be found at www.pjm.com