By Bruce Henderson
Duke Energy Carolinas filed 5,012 pages of written testimony, data analyses and appendices Monday in support of its request for an overall 9.7 percent North Carolina rate hike.
Buried in all those numbers is one that’s most relevant to most customers: 14 percent. That’s the increase the majority of residential customers are being asked to pay.
Duke’s news release said the hike, if approved by the N.C. Utilities Commission, would raise residential rates 11.8 percent. That’s actually a weighted average of the five rate schedules available to residential customers, including cheaper Energy Star and time-of-use rates.
But most customers are billed under Schedule RS. According to Duke’s example of the impact residential customers could expect, the typical monthly bill of $102.72 would grow by $14.27 — a 14 percent increase.