By: WJAC Web Staff and The Associated Press
READING – The four Pennsylvania subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp. are seeking rate increases to help pay for infrastructure enhancements.
The subsidiaries filed rate plans with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission on Monday.
Under the proposals, residential customers who use 1,000 kilowatt hours a month would see their bills increase by 11.8 percent for Penn Power, 14.7 percent for West Penn Power, 16.3 percent for Penelec and 17.8 percent for Met-Ed.
According to the Altoona Mirror, Penelec has requested an increase of $119.8 million, or 8.6 percent over current rates.
If approved, residential customers averaging the 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month would see bills increase 16.3 percent, or $19.58, for a monthly bill of $140.04, the Mirror reported.
FirstEnergy Pennsylvania Operations President Dave Karafa said that the new rates would allow the company to use technology to reduce the number of outages and the number of customers affected when outages occur.
The subsidiaries serve about 2 million Pennsylvania customers. They want to put the rates into effect Oct. 3.
