No Power, No Heat and Higher Bills in NJ

New Jersey state residents have been greatly affected by storms this year. Electricity goes out fordays before it is restored. This means that people are suffering with no power and no heat, just waiting for their utility company to get things back on track. Worse yet, they are being asked to pay higher costs to reimburse utility companies like PSE&G.

Utility companies say that they have incurred a huge cost trying to restore power to customers in recent storms. For example, PSE&G said it cost them more than $40 million to restore power to customers after Hurricane Irene. They want to charge a rate increase to recoup nearly $30 million of that expense. Their argument is that customers typically cover the cost of outage restoration but that standard electrical charges don't cover the extreme damage of such large storms. Customers argue that they aren't happy with the restoration actions of the utility companies and therefore don't want to be charged for the inconvenience that they experienced.

PSE&G is not the only utility company that is seeking to increase rates because of recent New Jersey storms. Orange & Rockland and Jersey Central Power and Light both incurred huge costs thanks to the storms and are also seeking to pass those costs on to customers. Customers aren't going to know for months or maybe even years weather or not these rate increases will be approved. It is a slow process involving the Public Board of Utilities. Nevertheless, customers are eager to speak out immediately against the rate hikes. After all, why should a customer have to pay a higher NJ electric rate to get electricity and heat back after a storm when that should be a normal practice for a utility company?

Source: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/55707--storm-rate-hikes-could-be-on-the-horizon-in-nj