Renewable energy and power grid improvements dominated much of the testimony in a PECO rate increase hearing Tuesday night in Newtown Township.
PECO has proposed an electric rate increase that could add up to approximately 3.2 percent more for the average residential customer at the start of next year. As part of the approval process, PECO must hold a handful of Public Utility Commission hearings across its coverage area.
Most of the testimony at the hearing at Bucks County Community College included urging PECO and the commission to push toward efficiency upgrades to the power grid and implementing more solar, wind and other renewable energy resources.
“The dirty electricity that PECO puts out — or that PECO pays for — is our region’s biggest driver of climate change and increasingly severe weather,” said John Magee, of the renewable energy activist group Earth Quaker Action Team.
PECO’s rate change must be approved by the state PUC, which considers whether the increases could unfairly affect impoverished communities as part of its decision.
While the average residential customer could pay about $40 more in 2019, commercial customers could pay up to $132 a year more and industrial customers would pay nearly $200 more a year.
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