TVA fuel costs rise, EPB rates up 2.7 percent Nation magazine salutes EPB’s ‘Gig City’ web link

The average price of electricity in Chattanooga this month is up nearly 2.7 percent from a year ago due to across-the-board increases in base rates by TVA and EPB and an increase in fuel costs this month over last.

TVA said the fuel cost portion of its electric bills in June is up nearly 12.6 percent from May’s level, although fuel costs are still below any month in 2015.

“Fuel costs typically increase during the summer months as demand rises because of warmer weather,” TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said.

On June 1, TVA’s monthly fuel cost adjustment increased from 1.632 cents per kilowatt hour last month to 1.837 cents per kilowatt hour for residential and business customers.

Despite the monthly increase, Brooks said the overall system average fuel rate is approximately 24 percent lower than the average June monthly fuel cost for the previous three years. Lower natural gas prices remain a primary driver, Brooks said.

Combining the monthly fuel costs, which are set each month, with the base power rates, which are set each year by TVA and EPB, the average electricity bill this month for a typical Chattanooga household using 1,461 kilowatt hours will be $151.87. A year ago, the same power use would cost a residential EPB customer $147.92.

The Nation magazine on Friday published an online news story Friday praising Chattanooga’s municipal electric utility for pioneering the nation’s first community-wide gigabit-per-second internet service ahead of major privately owned cable and telecom companies.

Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly magazine and a leading voice of liberal thought, said EPB’s $320 million fiber optic network and smart grid has helped boost the local economy and brought better and cheaper telecom services to local residents.

“Chattanooga’s publicly owned internet service has helped boost its economy and bridge the digital divide,” Nation reporter Peter Moskowitz said. “By offering gigabit connections at $70 a month and providing discounts for low-income residents, EPB has taken tens of thousands of customers from the internet behemoth Comcast, which offers service that is about 85 percent slower at twice the price.”

Critics of municipal broadband note that EPB was boosted by $111.6 million in federal grants and claim as a city-owned utility, EPB has certain tax and taxpayer guarantee advantages that investor-owned telecom companies don’t share. Comcast also offers some cheaper alternatives than EPB for those who don’t desire as fast of an internet link or so many TV channels as what EPB offers.

But Moskowitz said EPB’s fiber optic service has grown to 82,000 customers and “it’s been such a success that dozens of other towns and cities have begun their own municipal broadband networks, providing faster and cheaper service than private companies.”