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Today was the deadline for the Public Utilities Commission to make a final decision about whether or not to increase electricity rates. You’ll remember that the Government and a few UDP supporters objected to the decision from the PUC to increase electricity rates from 39.2 cents per kilowatt hour to 42 cents per kilowatt hour. The Utilities regulator has considered their objections, but in the end, the PUC is deciding that this rate increase still has to happen.

But, they’ve decided to give you, the consumers, a small relief. Instead of increasing your light bill by 6.9% to 42 cents per kilowatt hour, they’re only increasing it by 5.5%. That means that the rates are going up to 41.38 cents per kilowatt hour instead, which is less than the 41.5 cents per kilowatt hour that BEL was requesting, and certainly lower than the 42 cents per kilowatt hour that the PUC decided on 2 weeks ago.

A press release from the PUC says, quote, â€œThe Amendment provides for an increase in the Mean Elecricity Rates to 41.38 cent per kilo-watthour, along with relevant increases to the approved Tariffs to be applied during the period January 1 to June 30, 2019.â€￾

So, what about the formal objections from the Government and the UDP supporters who wrote to the PUC? Well, we are told that those objections, though they were only a handful from the total number of electricity consumers, were taken into consideration and played a role in the reduction of the increase that the PUC had initially approved.