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By Ryan Randazzo | Arizona Republic
Arizona Public Service newly elected regulator wants to cut rates 25% says Arizona Corporation Commissioner
Arizona utility regulator Lea Márquez Peterson, who recently won her first term after she was appointed to the Corporation Commission last year, is calling on Arizona Public Service to substantially reduce its rates.
The unusual call for a rate decrease from a commissioner comes as APS seeks another $169 million annual increase in a pending rate case.
Commissioners, whose work is quasi-judicial, usually refrain from opining on issues before them so as not to prejudge a case.
But as APS is seeking to boost prices, which average about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour at the electric company, Márquez Peterson is asking the company to provide a plan for getting rates down to 9 cents per kilowatt-hour or as close as possible.
Customers pay different prices depending on whether they are household or business accounts and depending which plan they are on and when they use electricity, but overall the decrease she is seeking is about 25%.
“Please describe how we can work together to achieve $0.09/kWh or, in the alternative, how close to $0.09/kWh we can get if $0.09/kWh is not possible, and how long it will take us to get there,” she wrote in a letter to the utility and all the parties involved in the rate case.”
