Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) continues to urge its customers to use energy wisely and institute energy conservation measures immediately due to higher winter electric bills, driven by the sharply higher cost of natural gas used to fuel electric generating facilities.

Market prices for natural gas climbed from around $7 per million British thermal units (MMBtus) in June to around $14 per MMBtus by late September.  Prices have since declined to the range of $10 per MMBtus but are expected to remain at historically high levels for the foreseeable future.

December is the first month in which PSO will be allowed to collect the higher fuel cost.  As a result, PSO’s residential customers can expect to see an approximate 32 percent increase in their winter electric bills.

Under the previous fuel cost factor, the bill of a PSO residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month was $69.22, excluding taxes and franchise fee.  With the new, higher fuel cost that same bill total will be $91.51, excluding taxes and franchise fee.

The electric bills of all PSO customers will reflect the higher cost of natural gas.
 
PSO does not make any money from the purchase of natural gas to fuel PSO plants that generate electricity for its customers.  The actual cost of fuel is recovered from customers on their monthly bills. Fuel cost amounts and the process through which fuel costs are passed along to customers are subject to review and approval by state regulators.  Following are a couple of actions customers can take to help manage their electric bills: 

• Consider signing up for PSO’s Average Monthly Payment (AMP) plan. AMP evens out the highs and lows in monthly bills, which makes budgeting a little easier.  To sign up for AMP, please call PSO’s Customer Service Center at 1-888-216-3523.
• Check out PSO’s website, PSOklahoma.com, for energy saving tips.  In addition, here’s a link to access an Internet site where customers can perform their own home energy audits and calculate for themselves the energy savings and costs of various conservation steps and actions.  The link to that website is http://hes.lbl.gov. Customers also will find a number of helpful energy conservation links.

 
PSO, a unit of American Electric Power, is an electric utility company serving approximately 511,000 customers in eastern and southwestern Oklahoma.  Based in Tulsa, PSO has more than 4,000 megawatts of generating capacity.