Batavians to pay more for electricity

Enjoy your Christmas lights this year, Batavians. Next year, it will cost you more to run them.

You will pay almost $7 more per month for service, and at least 10 percent more per kilowatt hour for the actual electricity.

Gone, too, is the higher summer rate, though the overall cost for electricity is still increasing since the new rate, which takes effect Jan. 1, will be the same all year.

Residential customers now pay a monthly charge of $3.59 a month. For four months in the summer, they paid 10.608 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity; the rest of the year, it was 6.645 cents.

But in 2012, they will pay a $10 monthly charge, and 9.16 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency says the average American household uses 799 kilowatt hours of electricity per month. A Batavia household with that average this year would have paid $43.08 for service and $763.72 for the electricity. That doesn't include taxes and other charges, nor does it account for the fact that people typically use more electricity per month during those summer months than in the winter.

Under the new rates, that user would pay $120 for service and $878.26 for the electricity.

The 2012 budget anticipates the city spending $31.9 million to purchase electricity, compared to $25.8 million for 2011. The budget also reflects $3.3 million for capital expenditures, including $475,000 for replacing a digger/derrick truck that was postponed from the 2011 budget, and replacing a medium-sized bucket truck. Public works director Gary Holm said the city has deferred some capital work for several years as it tried to hold the line on spending, due to the bad economy. But costs of supplies, including fuel and electricity, have risen, he pointed out.

Charges and rates for electricity — which were last increased in 2008 — were also increased for nonresidential users.

And it isn't the only utility bill going up. In August, the council decided to raise water rates 3 percent each of the next four years, and the sewer rate 8 percent.