Atlantic City Electric Receives Approval for Base Rate Adjustment

MAYS LANDING — Aug. 20, The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) announced its approval of a stipulation of settlement in the Atlantic City Electric (ACE) base rate case authorizing ACE to increase its electric distribution rates by $19 million. The new rates will go into effect Sept. 1.
Under the new rates, a typical bill for a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours per month will increase by $2.81 or from $171.73 to $174.54 per month, a 1.65 percent increase over rates currently in effect. The new rates equate to 9 cents per day in increased electric rates.
“Atlantic City Electric strives to keep costs to a minimum. However, in order to continue providing quality service, it’s important to invest in new infrastructure and upgrade existing electrical systems,” said Vince Maione, Atlantic City Electric Region president. “The distribution rate adjustment will help enable us to continue our ongoing reliability improvement programs to meet our customers’ expectations.”
ACE has been committed to investing in its system, and over the past five years ACE has invested approximately $685 million into its electric system. Customers are seeing the benefits of this work. Customers experienced 11 percent fewer outages and an 11 percent reduction in the length of outages from Dec. 2013 through June of this year.
Since 2012, ACE has performed reliability upgrades and system improvements on about 150 feeders, higher voltage lines that distribute electricity to customers; installed automated switching technology on about 30 feeders designed to isolate outages and restore power to customers quicker; and upgraded about 165 circuit miles of wire with sturdier wire.
The $19 million base rate adjustment is about 30 percent of the original request filed March 14 for a base rate adjustment of approximately $61.7 million to help pay for reliability investments already made.
ACE currently plans to make infrastructure investments to further improve service reliability for customers through building new and upgrading existing infrastructure; building new substations; replacing transformers, poles, wires and other infrastructure improvements; and replacing wood utility poles with steel poles where warranted.
Distribution rates cover the cost of delivering power, not the cost of the power itself. Customers who buy energy from a competitive supplier continue to receive distribution service from ACE so they also will be affected by this requested rate adjustment. The new total monthly bill for customers who shop for their energy will vary according to the price charged by the customer’s supplier.
Customers with questions regarding billing or the rate adjustment can contact our Customer Care Center at 1-800-642-3780.
For information about energy assistance programs, customers can visit www.nj211.org or call 211, New Jersey’s non-emergency helpline, available 24/7 throughout the state.
For more information about ACE, visit www.atlanticcityelectric.com. Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/atlanticcityelectric and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acelecconnect. Download our mobile app at www.atlanticcityelectric.com/mobileapp.