THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 1, 1995 TAG: 9511010454
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
State regulators, citing a decline in coal prices and the better-than-projected performance of Virginia Power's nuclear plants, approved a $107 million reduction in what the electric utility charges its customers for fuel.
The reduction - from 1.438 cents per kilowatt-hour to 1.229 cents - takes effect today.
Because of the change, residential customers who use 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month will see a $2.09 drop in their monthly bill.
The fuel rate, which is examined annually by the State Corporation Commission, reflects what a utility pays for the fuel used to generate electricity.
The commission's action Tuesday did not affect Virginia Power's base rate, which is another part of its customer's monthly bill.
In its latest fuel-rate filing with the commission, Virginia Power asked in September for a $97 million reduction in its fuel rate.
``The (commission) staff was able to find another $10 million of savings,'' said Kenneth Schrad, a commission spokesman.
The staff, he said, determined that Virginia Power would be able to refuel its nuclear plants faster than the utility had projected in its rate filing.
That, in turn, would reduce the cost of buying or generating the power to replace what the out-of-service plants would have produced.
In its determination of a utility's fuel rate, the commission examines fuel costs for the past year and the outlook for these costs in the coming 12 months.
In a separate action Tuesday, the commission tabled a Virginia Power proposal that would have allowed the utility to charge its industrial customers a lower fuel rate than the one charged residential and commercial customers.
The commission may consider that proposal in a separate study, Schrad said. by CNB