Duke Energy customers daunted by higher energy bills this winter in the hundreds of dollars have been contacting News 13 asking us to find out why their bills are so much higher than last winter.
“December’s was $318.51,” said Anthony Crisp, a Duke Energy customer who lives outside Sylva with his family in a 1900-square-foot modular home.
Crisp’s bill due in days is $409.88.
“Almost $500 a month for a 1,900-square-foot house is outrageous," he said Wednesday, Jan. 24. "I don’t understand the high prices and how it could go up so much in a year’s time.”
Crisp showed News 13 his graph chart for the past year, which seems to indicate that his power use in December 2023 wasn’t any higher that his use a year prior, in December 2022, yet he said his bills are hundreds of dollars higher.
In his home, Crisp said puts into action many of the tips Duke officials recommend for conserving energy, from using LED lights to having good insulation in his walls and keeping his fan on to circulate warm air to keep it from rising.
News 13 spoke with several Duke representatives who said the power company did have a state-approved rate increase of 5.8% in October 2023. Then, just two months later in December, a fuel rate increase of 4.1% was passed on to customers. Plus, Duke representatives cited higher use of electricity due to winter weather. Those three factors are what customers are seeing reflected in higher bills hitting mailboxes this winter, the spokesperson said.
Another News 13 viewer asked about new lines that detail “rider charges.” The charges were previously summarized in a per-kilowatt energy rate and not broken out,but that has since changed.
“Riders include approved fuel, generation, environmental, purchases and credit that affect reliable and efficient service to customers,” said Logan Kureczka, spokesperson for Duke Energy. “They are often fees that help advance state policy goals, such as funding to bring more solar energy to the grid.”
As for Crisp, he’s just worried about what the next big bill will be for Duke -- and he said he’s not convinced the rate hike and the winter weather coupled with the fuel rate pass-through charges are all that’s causing his bills to be so much higher than last winter.
Duke Energy has a state-approved rate hike schedule for the coming years:
- October 2023 base rate increase: 5.8%
- October 2024 base rate increase: 3.2%
- October 2025 base rate increase: 3.4%
Duke offers a free house call option in which a tech will go through a customer's house to look for inefficiencies and ways they may be able to save. Click HERE for more information.
