Explanation
BACKGROUND
This ordinance authorizes rate adjustments and the creation of a new rate class for the Division of Power, effective January 1, 2016, and to amend Chapter 1163 of the Columbus City Code, 1959.
The Division of Power provides electricity services to approximately 13,000 customers through the City and maintains approximately 55,000 street lights. The division purchases its power from public and private utilities and resells the electricity to its customers wholesale. The division does not generate any electricity. The division’s closest competitor locally is American Electric Power (AEP).
The Division of Power customers are divided into four (4) major categories Residential, Small Commercial, Commercial, and Industrial. The current customer rate structure has been in place since 2007 in accordance with Ordinance 1911-2006, passed November 20, 2006. The Department of Public Utilities initiated a rate study with Red Oak Consulting, an Arcadis Group, in 2014. This comprehensive rate study provided the division with various rate recommendations for each customer class.
The Division of Power provides primary services to the Department of Public Utilities Jackson Pike and Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plants and the Hap Cremean and Dublin Road Water Plants. These four (4) facilities receive a dedicated circuit that is not available to any other large industrial customer.
As part of the rate study recommendations it is reasonable that the Division of Power could create a new customer class for premium service that it provides to the above mentioned department facilities. The Division of Power is requesting that a new customer rate class be established in Chapter 1163 and to increase the current energy charge for those facilities by 15%. No other industrial customers will be affected by this increase. New customers who request this service would be added to this new customer class.
The Division of Power charges all customers a monthly fixed ser...
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