A decrease in fuel costs to Entergy Arkansas means Arkansas homes and businesses will see lower electricity bills through the summer, the utility announced Thursday.
Entergy, the state’s largest power company, said residential residents will see about a $10 decrease in their monthly bills on average, and that commercial and industrial bills will fall between 1.6% and 17.7%, depending on their levels of power use.
A residential customer using the average 1,000 kilowatt-hours will see their bills go down nearly 7.5%, the utility said.
The smaller bills will reflect a decreased rate charged on the basis of the cost of fuel Entergy uses to generate power, which is known as the Energy Cost Recovery Rider and is billed monthly under the line item “Fuel and Purchased Cost.”
The ECR rate, which utilities review and adjust annually, will fall from about 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour to about 1.8 cents, the cheapest fuel rate passed along for consumers in years.
Along with generation fuel costs, the ECR also reflects wholesale costs Entergy Arkansas pays for supplementary power.
Unless adjustments are necessary, Entergy said, the new rate will be in effect for the next 11 months.
Arkansas perennially ranks in the top 10 states for inexpensive electricity, and figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration in January put the state in the top three at less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour for all electricity users. It trailed only Louisiana, at 9.37 cents, and Washington state at 9.79 cents.
Hawaii had the highest cost of electricity, more than three times Arkansas’ rate.
“Although our rates are consistently lower than the regional and national average, we continue to keep affordability four our customers at the forefront of our decisions,” said a statement by Ventrell Thompson, Entergy Arkansas’ vice president of customer service. “The total decrease customers see on their bills will vary based on their individual energy usage but [the rate decrease] comes at a time when our customers need bill relief and will extend during the upcoming hot summer months.”
Relatively cheap generation from Arkansas Nuclear One in Russellville generates about 71% of Entergy’s output in the state. Natural gas powered 15%. The utility is also increasingly relying on solar power, with three utility-scale solar generation fields already operating and three expected to come online soon. Solar power now provides about 5% of the power Arkansans use.
“Because we have a diverse fuel mix that includes nuclear, natural gas, coal, solar and hydropower, we are able to produce electricity at the lowest cost possible,” William Cunningham, director of resource planning, said in the announcement on entergynewsroom.com. “In fact, our consistently low rates help make our state an attractive place for new and existing businesses to grow and expand.”
Entergy serves about 730,000 power customers in Arkansas.
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