Colorado Springs approves about 9% cut to fixed electric adjustment

The Colorado Springs City Council approved lowering the fixed Electric Cost Adjustment (ECA) from 2.33 to 2.11 cents per kilowatt-hour starting Oct. 1, a reduction of about 9%. The adjustment helps cover electricity generation and purchased-power costs. The adopted resolution keeps the listed time-of-day adjustment rates unchanged.

For customers billed under the fixed adjustment, the decrease is $0.0022 per kilowatt-hour, or $2.20 for every 1,000 kilowatt-hours used. Colorado Springs Utilities’ sample bill estimates show a $1.54 monthly reduction in the electric portion of a residential bill at 700 kilowatt-hours of use and a $13.20 reduction for a commercial customer using 6,000 kilowatt-hours.

Those are sample estimates, not guaranteed reductions in total bills; actual charges vary with usage and other rates. The fixed-rate calculation does not apply to customers billed under the Energy-Wise time-of-day rates, which are unchanged.

For October through March, Utilities’ rate-setting worksheet estimates $52.9 million in generation fuel and purchased-power costs. It subtracts a projected $1.93 million in cumulative over-recovery, then divides the remaining $50.97 million by about 2.42 billion kilowatt-hours of forecast sales subject to the adjustment, producing a rate of about 2.11 cents per kilowatt-hour.