LCEC assures customers there may be some relief in sight for power bills

The cost of living keeps ballooning out of control, and one bill that many people are telling WINK News is causing their wallet to take a hit is their power bill.

Recently WINK News told you about the drastic increases some people and businesses have seen. In Cape Coral, one man even filed a petition against LCEC over the recent rate hikes.

LCEC did say there may be some relief in sight.

The price of pretty much everything is up these days. Gas was trending down for a while but is inching higher again. Electricity? That has been climbing steadily for months.

People in Cape Coral, like Anna Schimp, say they’re paying more and don’t know why. “It’s like, wow, I mean, I asked my husband did we run something extra? Did we do something?” said Schimp.

Schimp’s bill went up $50, and she knows she’s one of the lucky ones. “Our bill was low, really low before that, so it’s still doable. But I know my daughter’s bill went up tremendously.”

As a result, people are struggling to pay their bills, and they want relief.

LCEC said during Wednesday night’s council meeting it could be a while. The utility’s estimate is eight months.

“What I can’t predict real well is what natural gas is going to do. So the supply is in such disarray here of late when you think about the war with Russia and Ukraine. And then the suppliers of natural gas they’re hesitant to oversupply because they’ve been stuck before. That’s the big variable,” said Denise Vidal, LCEC’s chief executive officer.

The price of natural gas is up 300% in the last year, but that’s not the only reason LCEC customers are paying more.

The company has to recover $80 million in power cost adjustments. That’s the amount collected from customers to pay the company’s power supplier.

“So many things going up that this, the electric, which has been very steady, is now going up up up, and we just hope it doesn’t go up anymore,” said Schimp.

In a statement, LCEC assured its customers the prices would go down as soon as possible, pointing out that the power cost adjustment has gone down five times since 2014.

They said once temperatures go down, that should help some as customer usage will decline.