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While the temperature still has a tendency to drop in the local area this season, local power rates are also beginning to fall.

March marks the last month of TVA’s winter season in rate classification and the rates that coincide with them. While this isn’t yet a transition month, local residents are still expected to see a drop in price.

For Etowah Utilities Board (EUB) customers, General Manager Harold Masengil said a drop of 5.1% in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) fuel surcharge should lead to about an $8.50 decline in the average residential bill.

TVA has announced its fuel rate for the month will fall to $0.02780 from the current $0.03541.

For Athens Utilities Board (AUB) customers, that means the power rate will be $0.10024 compared to the February rate of $0.10785.

“It is important for all customers to understand that AUB’s portion of the rate is unchanged from last month. TVA is lowering their fuel rate this month, which we welcome,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.

AUB’s portion of the rate for March is $0.07244, exactly the same as it was in December, January and February. March 2023 will be the last of four months during the winter rate season, according to Scarbrough.

April and May will be what is called “transition” months, when AUB’s power rate is the lowest of the year.

According to Scarbrough, all of this comes in the wake of TVA representatives testifying before Tennessee lawmakers on Feb. 7 about the rolling blackouts that TVA enforced on local power companies on Dec. 23 and 24.

“Just before Christmas was the first time that we have ever had to take the step of actually cutting people’s power off in order to save the TVA grid,” he noted. “We hated to have to take such drastic measures, especially when TVA had been in the news leading up to Dec. 23 saying that all was well, that they were totally prepared for the cold that we knew was coming,” he said.

Scarbrough noted that the actions taken were able to stave off more severe measures.

“That would have been the next step, called Step 60, which is TVA’s emergency tripping of firm power load. We and other utilities across the region did what we had to do to keep that from happening. We greatly appreciate the patience and resilience that our customers showed during this unprecedented event,” Scarbrough said.

AUB General Manager Eric Newberry said he hopes TVA will take further in-house action as a result of what happened in December.

“We believe that TVA should do what is necessary to avoid this type of event in the future — no question about that. And we believe they should, at least for this year, take a serious look at the bonuses they give out every November to the tune of $160 million and more instead of leaning on ratepayers to make up any shortfall,” he said. “We understand they have needs to strengthen their system, but they will pay to meet those needs via money from our ratepayers and then likely turn around and give out $160 million or more in bonuses to a workforce that already is justly compensated.”

AUB’s power rate has increased less than 8% in the past 25 years. TVA, however, has increased its rate by more than 62% in fewer than 20 years, Scarbrough noted.

“Those are the facts. We don’t understand why TVA won’t operate like a true public power provider,” he said.

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