The extremely cold temperatures during February’s historic winter weather event caused members to use more electricity than they would during a normal February, including our Wheatland Prepay members.
There are two components to your electric bill:
- The price per kilowatt-hour, which is the unit of measurement for electricity, and how much electricity you use. The price for electricity is set in Wheatland’s tariffs, but the amount of electricity that you use varies with each monthly bill.
- The POWER COST ADJUSTMENT (PCA) is a rate mechanism ELECTRIC utilities use to recover fluctuating purchased wholesale power costs.
Over the last several months, the PCA on your Wheatland Electric Prepay daily usage has been a negative number due to the low price of natural gas.
The winter weather event that occurred the week of Feb 13-18, 2021, required utilities to purchase natural gas at record-high costs.
THESE PRICES WILL BE REFLECTED IN THE PCA ON YOUR MONTHLY MARCH TRUE-UP PROCESS THAT REFLECTS YOUR FEBRUARY USAGE.
Wheatland Electric plans to do everything possible to mitigate the impact that the winter weather event will have on your March Prepay monthly true-up.
FOR THAT REASON, THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES VOTED FEB. 23, 2021, TO ALLOW ANY ADDITIONAL COSTS FROM THIS WINTER WEATHER EVENT TO BE SPREAD OUT EVENLY OVER A 12-MONTH TIME PERIOD. Prepay accounts usage calculates daily, so we will be spreading this out daily per the following example:
Disclaimer: This is an EXAMPLE of what you can expect to see on your daily Prepay usage during the monthly March true-up process and going forward with your daily usage. This does not reflect actual charges.
Example: Winter weather event impact with 1,000 monthly kWh usage = $265.00 / 12 months = $22.09 / 30 days = $.74 cents along with all daily applicable charges. This daily amount will bill until the winter weather event remaining balance has reached $0.
Our billing team has worked closely with our software provider to develop the best option with the least amount of impact on our Prepay accounts. The time frame of the 16th of March is only an estimated date when the following will update to your Prepay account.
Example: During the monthly March 16th true-up process this daily charge for the winter weather event will be added for the first 16 days (March 1st-16th) as a one-time billing charge (16 days @ .74 cents) for a total added to your daily usage of $11.84. Beginning on the 17th of March the daily charge of .74 cents will bill out along with all other daily applicable charges until the winter weather event balance is $0. Wheatland staff will be watching all Prepay accounts closely and when this winter weather event is added to Prepay accounts for the 16 days, WE WILL SUSPEND THE AUTOMATIC TERMINATION OF ANY METER THAT FALLS BELOW A ZERO BALANCE. A Consumer Service Representative will contact any Prepay member that has fallen below zero to discuss payment options to best suit their financial needs.
To help eliminate your meter balance falling below zero, any additional funds you could add to your meter prior to the estimated March 16th date would help eliminate the impact during the March true-up process.
We cannot share yet how your individual bill will be impacted because we are awaiting final costs from our suppliers. However, we wanted to give you an idea of what you can possibly expect to see when your Prepay account goes thru the March monthly true-up process and how we plan to mitigate the impact on our Prepay members.
Wheatland Electric will work diligently with our prepay members during these unprecedented times to limit the financial impact.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact your local office.