City revising rules for electric customers who generate surplus electric power

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019 — The Bardstown City Council took its first steps to revise its ordinances related to its electric utility and renewable energy at its meeting Tuesday night.

The council held a public hearing prior to the start of Tuesday night’s meeting and City Engineer Eric Richter explained the proposed changes to the city’s electric utility ordinance.

One of the changes will alter the way the city reimburses city electric utility customers who have their own electric generation setups through wind or solar power.

Right now, the city credits these users on one-to-one basis for each unit of electricity they produce. In other words, their electric bills include credits for any surplus power their systems create that are uploaded to the city power grid on a one-to-one exchange rate.

Those who currently have solar or wind power generation systems will continue to enjoy the one-to-one credit rate, as they will be grandfathered in for 25 years. The proposed change will reduce that exchange rate slightly for new renewable power generators in order to make certain the rate takes into account the utility’s overhead and upkeep costs for the distribution system.

The proposed change means that customers who generate power after Jan. 1, 20120 will pay the current rate for city electricity — 7.95 cents per kilowatt hour; in turn, any power they generate above their own usage and goes out to the city electrical grid will be credited 6.371 cents were kilowatt hour.

Customers who have renewable energy power systems will also see their customer charge increase from $10 to $11 to help cover the extra costs involved in handling these customers.

The changes also will update the fee schedules for new residential and commercial customers for transformer tap fees, transformer placement and other fees. Those fees — previously contained in a municipal ordeer — will now be codified in the city electric utility ordinance.

The council plans to have the ordinance prepared to become effective on Jan. 1, 2020. First reading of the ordinance was completed Tuesday night, and second reading and final approval will take place at a special 5 p.m. council meeting next Tuesday, Dec. 17.

The council will also approve a revised municipal order regarding the city electric utility that will eliminate references to rates and schedules.

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