Georgia Power customers will see an increase in their electricity bills beginning this January.
The Public Service Commission voted 4-1 Tuesday to allow the Southern Co. subsidiary to impose one of its sharpest rate increases in recent history.
Bills for average residential customers will jump to more than $14 per month.
Critics had urged regulators to scale back the increase, saying it was too much during the recession that has pushed unemployment to 10.1 percent. The company serves much of the state, including Gainesville, Flowery Branch, Hoschton, Braselton and Buford.
“This is one of the most difficult votes I will be making on this commission,” said Commissioner Chuck Eaton, who voted for the plan moments later. “A lot of people are in very difficult situations right now.”
The lone “no” vote came from outgoing Commissioner Robert Baker, widely seen as the most aggressive consumer advocate on the panel. He backed an alternate plan that would have limited Georgia Power’s profit margins and he opposed making it easier for the utility to ask for a rate increase without filing a new regulatory case with the commission.
Baker sharply criticized the settlement that effectively resolved the increase, which was written by the utility firm and the PSC’s staff. He called it a “disturbing precedent.”
“Other parties were invited to sign onto the agreement, but with no opportunity to change any of the provisions. It was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition,” Baker said.
The $14 increase will come in two parts. Average residential customers, or those who use 1,000 kilowatts hours a month, will see an increase of about $10.76 to their rates. Georgia Power will also levy additional charges on its customers to repay the financing costs of building two nuclear reactors in eastern Georgia.
They will begin operation in 2016 and 2017.
Georgia Power spokesman Jeff Wilson said the amount will be about $3.73 per customer, also starting in January.
“The reason we’re recovering costs during construction rather than when it goes online is because it will save customers $3 million, if we pay off the interest now,” Wilson said. “The nuclear units will meet future electricity needs.”
The rate increases will also fund infrastructure investments and new technology. The company plans to retire its coal plants in Cobb County and replace them with natural gas plants.
“The units will be better for the environment, have less emissions and have more electricity output to serve metro Atlanta,” Wilson said.
Wilson said these decisions were not easy to make, considering the state of the economy.
For those having trouble with payments, there are a few avenues they can take, he said. One is Project Share, which is administered by the Salvation Army and assists low-income customers. People can also work out billing arrangements by calling Georgia Power directly.
Wilson said average residential customers pay about $93.65 a month in the wintertime, or October to May. In the summer, June through September, the bills average about $115.64.
Associated Press contributed to this report.