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| Middletown Community News |
| Duke Files Wind Storm Costs |
| Wednesday, December 24, 2008 8:26:33 AM - Middletown Ohio |
By: Tara Kunkle
When the windstorm hit Ohio this past fall and knocked out power to thousands of residents and could cost Duke Energy Ohio customers almost $31 million. On December 22nd the utility company filed with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to change its accounting methods to track expenses incurred while servicing customers left without power after Hurricane Ike.
Right now Duke is estmating more than 572,700 Ohio customers that were without power. Even though for some it was only for five minutes. There were around 3,000 employees and contractors called up to repair damages and staff call centers. The estimated storm-related expenses will amount to $31 million.
After Duke accounts the expenses the plan is for Duke to recover those costs through a temporary distribution rider on all resident and commericial customer bills over a period of three years. As of now the company serves around 690,000 customers in Ohio. Duke Energy is a publicly-traded company and there is no other recourse for them to collect those expenses. Those costs exceeded the average storm-related costs.
The Ohio Consumers' Counsel a residential consumer advocacy group said Duke has not justified its windstorm-related costs. The OCC is a part of the Consumers for Reliable Electricity in Ohio and has called for the PUCO to investigate the reliability of utility companies to determine if they are doing all they can using current customer charges.
The time has not been set for PUCO to rule on Duke's filing. Early last week American Electric Power of Columbus had also filed to recover its windstorm costs. |
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Archived Comments
| 12/24/2008 9:58:18 AM | Jon Haller | | I remember the out of state crews that were working in our area. We had one here from North Carolina. | | 12/24/2008 11:40:36 AM | NoDukeLoveLost | | The crews did work hard after the storm but that incident aside I have to wonder about the infrastructure in South West Ohio as power outages have continued to become more and more frequent with each passing year. | | 12/31/2008 10:55:02 AM | The Resident of Middletown | The reason we had such wide spread power outages was because DUKE has neglected the infrastructure in this area for years. So if they had been spending money ove the past several years to keep their equipment repaired, this outage would not have been half as bad.
It upsets me that we will now have to pay for these repairs a second time. | | 1/6/2009 5:09:47 AM | Albert E. Lane | | Please go to Google: Type in PUCO Case # 08-709-El-Air. Press 5th or th paragraph from top that has letters DIS within it. Then press Dec 31, 2008 item on PUCO docket about my opposition to Duke Energy of Ohio proposed electric distribution increase & recouping 30 mil because of Sept 08 "Ike" windstorm costs and 1 mil in capital asset loss.. Posted at PUCO on Dec 31, 2008 by A. Lane. Press view image in upper left corner of that document to open up the 8 page document. I am a residential consumer customer of Duke Energy that did not have electrcity during the Ike windstorm of Sept 2008 for 5 days and for two days during the Valentines Day ice storm of February 2007. | | 3/6/2009 12:35:20 PM | Albert E. Lane | | March 6, 2009- As a Duke Energy of Ohio customer I have become an intervenor with PUCO on the Duke-Ohio request to raise the electric distribution rate of residences 4.73%. The ooponents are now in the Discovery time frame with the PUCO staff. I have filed as of March 4, 2009 27 questions for either or both the PUCO staff and Duke Energy of Ohio to answer. The 27 questions can be found on the PUCO Docket as follows on Google:Type in PUCO Case # 08-709-El-Air. Press search. go to the paragraph that says DIS-08-709 etc. Press. Go to left upper column on page 1 (after cover letter) and press my March 4, 2009 piece.Then press in upper left, view image-- and you will be able to read the 27 questions on 8 pages. Thanks |
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