Power lines in Londonderry Township pictured on June 3, 2024. (Jeremy Long - WITF)
Here’s how PPL and Met-Ed customers may be able to duck electricity price hike
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LNP|LancasterOnline Staff
Power lines in Londonderry Township pictured on June 3, 2024. (Jeremy Long - WITF)
A 16% increase is in store June 1 for homeowners purchasing their electricity from PPL Utilities.
Met-Ed customers can expect an 8% increase that day.
However, customers willing to shop for electricity should be able to find a lower rate, based on postings at the state’s online marketplace, papowerswitch.com, as of today.
PPL is the default electric supplier for most homes in Lancaster County, with approximately 272,000 customers here, while Met-Ed is the default supplier for about 2,200 Met-Ed customers in Bainbridge, Denver and Marietta ZIP codes.
Customers who don’t shop for electricity pay the default supplier’s rate, or price-to-compare, which is updated twice per year based upon competitive energy auctions.
READ: UGI pushes gas rate increase for Lancaster County back to December
What’s increasing?
Electricity bills are made up of two parts – the cost of the electricity itself and the cost of operating and maintaining the system used to get the electricity to a customer. The June 1 increase is in the part of the bill that represents the cost of electricity, which under state law must be passed on to customers without any markup.
The price to compare, which represents the cost of generating electricity, is about 40% to 60% of a customer’s total utility bill. However, this percentage varies by utility and by the level of individual customer usage.
Utilities do not mark up the price of generation. The state Public Utility Commision approves a utility’s electric generation procurement plan, but does not regulate the price of the generation portion of the electric bill, which is driven by wholesale market factors.
What are the numbers?
For PPL’s residential customers, the price-to-compare – which is a number needed to comparison shop effectively – will be 12.491 cents per kilowatt-hour, up from the current 10.771 cents.
For small businesses, it will be 12.114 cents, up from 10.446 cents.
The change means that the average household served by PPL will pay an extra $19.42 per month, while the average small business will pay an additional $14.98, according to the utility.
For Met-Ed’s residential customers, the new price-to-compare will be 11.9 cents per kilowatt hour, up from 11.01 cents. For commercial customers, it will be 11.57 cents, up from 11.05 cents.
This means the average residential customer of Met-Ed will see monthly bills rise from $140.95 to $147.64.
Met-Ed commercial customers on average will pay $1,829.92 per month, up from the current $1,764.15, according to the utility.
What can I do about it?
You can shop for a lower price at papowerswitch.com. Input your ZIP code and be sure to have your customer number from your utility bill as well as the price to compare.
The website will display current offers. Review them carefully as they will be of varying length and some may have fees for early termination or other stipulations like enrollment fees or monthly fees. In addition, the rates may be fixed or variable.
As of today, a ZIP code search for 17608 showed many offers below the new June PPL and Met-Ed rates, with some as low as 8 cents per kilowatt hour.
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