The first phase will amount to a $7 increase for the average customer.
The final phase will bring the average customer a monthly $26 increase based on 799 kilowatt hours — the average amount of electricity usage.
CenterPoint received approval for their rate increase on Monday from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC).
They've been analyzing the 200-page order from the IURC to determine how much electric rates will increase.
Mike Roeder, a CenterPoint Senior Vice President, said phase one will begin in about a week; the final phase will begin a year from now.
He said the first phase will pay toward investments made since the last increase 14 years ago.
“We've made a number of resiliency and reliability investments during that time that we were not recovering at all from customers,” he said. “And so this was the ability to be able to recover those investments.”
He said the largest chunk of the increase will help pay for things like the solar plant and combustion turbine plant in Posey County.
District 77 Rep. Alex Burton (D) said he’ll do what he can to from his seat at the statehouse to relieve high energy bills — like signing a renewable energy bill next week.
He’d like to see local governmental bodies unite behind their constituents over the cost of energy.
“Whether that's Vanderburgh county council, Vanderburgh County commissioners, Warwick County commissioners, we all are experiencing this, and we all have to have some skin in the game, and we all have to step up,” said Burton, a former Evansville City Council Member. “And it can't be a Facebook rant. It has to be intentional action items that get us to a better place as it relates to our utility and energy cost.”
Roeder admitted any impact or increase to one’s energy bill is never easy. “And again, we're always trying to balance the affordability issue with the reliability investments that we need to make,” he said.