December 3, 2020
By News Director Jared Atha
Officials with Public Service Company of Oklahoma announced recently that they will be increasing the fuel cost adjustment on customer bills to reflect higher prices for natural gas and purchased power.
In a press release, PSO says the adjustment is necessary to align the costs that PSO pays to purchase fuel for its power generating stations with the amounts that are charged customers for those purchases. Because fuel costs vary from predicted costs, the factor must be adjusted – up or down – to make sure customers pay only the fuel costs that PSO actually incurs – no more or less.
A significant driver of the increase is lower prices in both the Southwest Power Pool and natural gas energy markets in late 2019 that have now shifted upwards. PSO says because these fuel costs have been higher than predicted, customers have been paying less than the actual cost PSO incurred to provide electricity to them.
According to PSO, for a typical residential customer who uses 1,100 kWh of electricity a month, the fuel cost increase will amount to approximately $5.00 a month.
PSO’s fuel factors will be reviewed again in the spring of 2021 to determine if further adjustments are necessary.
