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Your PECO bill might increase in June

Residential default service PECO customers will see a 6% increase in the rate per kilowatt hour.

Adjusting the thermostat saves energy. Residential default-service PECO customers will see a 6% increase in the rate per kilowatt hour, beginning June 1, 2023.
Adjusting the thermostat saves energy. Residential default-service PECO customers will see a 6% increase in the rate per kilowatt hour, beginning June 1, 2023.Read moreJessica Griffin / Staff Photographer

Some PECO customers will see higher bills beginning in June due to an uptick in electric supply prices.

Residential PECO customers who receive the company’s default service will see a 6% increase in the rate per kilowatt hour (kWh), which is rising from 9.73 cents to 10.31 cents, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission announced Wednesday. About 1.2 million of PECO’s 1.7 million electric customers receive default service.

Overall, this change means the monthly bill for a customer who uses 700 kWh on average will increase by 3.65%, or $4.84, according to PECO.

Most other registered electric utilities in Pennsylvania are also raising this rate, which is referred to as the “price to compare,” or PTC, and is driven by market factors. The PTC affects the supply charge, which on average makes up half of a PECO customer’s monthly bill, depending on household usage. The charge represents how much a provider is paying for the amount of energy a customer uses, without a profit margin.

“Electric rates are increasing because some lower priced electric supply contracts expired and were replaced with new contracts that are higher due to current market conditions,” PECO said in a statement. “We replace about 35% of the supply each spring and fall, which lessens the impact of any market price changes and is less volatile.”

Still, PECO’s PTC of 10.31 cents per kWh remains one of the lowest for Pennsylvania electric utilities, the company noted in a statement. Only two other utilities are adjusting their price to a rate lower than PECO’s, according to PUC.

Customers who choose to get their electric from another competitive supplier through online marketplace PAPowerSwitch.com will not be affected by this rate change. Those customers will pay the rates of the provider they have chosen.

The PUC encouraged customers to shop around for suppliers.

PECO, which has 1.7 million electric customers in the Philadelphia region, said that while it is seeing a slight increase in electric supply prices, it is seeing a decrease in natural gas supply prices, which are finalized at the end of month. PECO serves about 545,000 natural gas customers in the suburbs.