LIPA Customers Can Expect Increase in Electric Bill in 2016

Local LIPA customers will most likely be paying more for their electric bill starting this January.

The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) recently approved a $325 million, three-year rate increase for their 1.1 million customers after a meeting at LIPA headquarters.

The increase will be in the delivery charge portion of the utility bill which represents about 50 percent of the total utility bill with the fuel charge representing the remainder of the bill.

The new rate hike is lower than the $441 million increase LIPA originally requested in January, which was rejected by state officials rejected last month in favor of a lower rate hike, according to a report in SoutholdLocal.

The rate hike of $325 million would mean the average residential customer will be seeing 0.8 percent increase in 2016, a 2.1 percent increase in 2017 and a 2.1 percent increase in 2018, according to the report.

The 5 percent increase over the next three years would mean this would be the largest increase in LIPA history.

LIPA has only increased the delivery charge twice over the last 16 years, both times by less than 2 percent.

According to State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, some board members disagreed with the rate hike, but they did not put forth any “specific objections.”

“Under the LIPA Reform Act, the Board claimed it could only vote on inconsistencies they found in the state-recommended rate hike,” Thiele said in a press release. “It could not hold an up or down vote on the rate hike itself. The final process for the Board will be officially to adopt the revenues laid out in the rate increase when LIPA adopts its budget in December.”

Thiele, who voted against the LIPA Reform Act in 2013, believe the rate proposal will have a ”substantial negative effect on Long Island jobs and the economy.”

“Clearly an electric rate increase will be a drag on any economic recovery,” he said. “Further, it will negatively impact Long Island’s ability to compete economically, as we again send a message to the nation and the world that companies on Long Island will continue to face the highest utility rates in the nation as well as increased debt that will impact rates for decades to come.”

He also believes that PSEG-LI should have been subject to the same cap as local government and school districts face for property taxes, which would be less than 1% this year.