Keep the heat on

If you’re a Summit Utilities customer—and if you’re reading this in Arkansas, you probably are—you’re not alone if you feel like the company that acquired CenterPoint’s assets in 2022 is still stuck at base camp.

Last year at about this time, Summit, with 410,000 customers in Arkansas and about 14,000 miles of pipeline to maintain, was at the center of many a water-cooler conversation because just about everyone was wondering how in th’ heck their natural gas bill had blown through the roof. Stories were rampant about ever-climbing bills, even though use had not changed much.

The attorney general got involved. The Public Service Commission investigated. Teeth were gnashed. Eventually, bills came down to what might be considered normal, and the PSC cleared the utility of wrongdoing related to over-billing.

But now the company is applying for a rate increase of around 30 percent. For residential customers, the increase requested amounts to nearly $20 per month. That adds up, doesn’t it? The good news is that the entire process of approving the new rates is expected to take around 10 months, according to the utility. So even if approved, the increase won’t be felt until almost 2025.

The “primary factor driving the need for this rate filing” relates to capital investments, interim rates that understated revenue requirements, and income taxes, according to the paper. Summit says it needs to recover $104.7 million.

For the PSC’s part, it says continued monitoring will lessen the likelihood of future billing and customer service errors that plagued the utility and its ratepayers in 2023.

Let’s hope so. This month reminds us how important that natural gas is.