It is Time for Vectren to Explain Why SW Indiana is an Island of Exorbitant Electricity Rates
The City County Observer has launched an investigative effort to determine just how much difference that there is in the residential electrical rates that people in SW Indiana are charged and why such a vast difference exists. To start we will state that Vectren’s current residential rate is 12.49 cents per KWh but that they have a request in to the State of Indiana to raise that rate to 13.93 cents per KWh. This represents the highest rate within the Evansville region and even one of the highest rates in the nation.
We began by looking across the money saving bridge to Henderson, Kentucky. What we discovered is that Henderson Municipal Power and Light’s winter rate is 4.34 cents per KWh. To put this into perspective if you were to use enough electricity to get a $300.00 electric bill from Vectren that same bill in Henderson would be $104.24. The $195.76 difference is enough to make the payment on a vehicle or even to pay for college textbooks for two.
Our next stop was to move north to the area where Duke Power provides the electricity where we found a tiered schedule where the first 300KWh are billed at 9.2945 cents per KWh, the next 700 at 5.4178 cents per KWh, and anything over 1,000 KWh per month is billed at 4.4464 cents per KWh. Your $300.00 Vectren bill in Vincennes, Terre Haute or any other Indiana based Duke Energy market would therefore be $126.23. That is not as cheap as Henderson but it is much lower than Vectren charges Evansville area customers.
Going east and north to Jasper, Indiana we found another tiered rate structure that is high for low users and lower for larger users of electricity. Jasper homeowners pay a total of $178.28 for the same electricity that Vectren’s Evansville customers would be billed $300.00 for.
We found similar large differences in what we in Vectren’s legislated monopoly pay relative to Owensboro and Louisville both of which enjoy rates that are over 40% cheaper than Vectren and to the west in Mount Vernon Illinois. To the south we checked significant cities all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and did not find any rates that are even close to Vectren’s. When we headed north we found one that is currently just a little bit more expensive than here in Chicago that averages 13.1 cents per KWh. If the State of Indiana passes Vectren’s request to increase the residential rate to 13.93 cents per KWh our rates will pass Chicago’s and we can safely say that “Evansville has the highest priced electricity from the Gulf of Mexico north beyond Chicago. We did not bother to check further north.
The City County Observer believes that for a region that likes to advertise itself as having a low cost of living that this island of excessive electricity pricing is ridiculous. Whatever money that residents of SW Indiana may be saving in low housing costs are heading right up the chimney and into the pockets of a monopoly. Electrons pretty much look the same and do the same things no matter where one buys them. Electricity is a commodity just like gasoline, grain, pork bellies, and gold. There always seems to be a slight price advantage to crossing the money saving bridge of 3% due to tax differences but for the most part things cost similar amounts.
Let us examine a hard commodity like gold which like electricity comes to us from mining and processing. Gold is currently priced at $1,386 per ounce. Where would you buy gold if it were $1,386 per ounce in Henderson but $3,989 per ounce in Evansville? The percentage differences for those two gold prices are exactly the difference in the commodity that we call electricity. The only difference in these markets is that Vectren enjoys and exploits a legislated monopoly and peddlers of gold can’t do so because of portability.
The City County Observer has offered the Vectren Corporation our front page with their explanation of just how a price differential of 188% can be justified by the width of the Ohio River or the 50 mile drive to another city. We have not received the courtesy of a response. We continue to offer them an opportunity to respond to this offer in unedited fashion. We and the people of Evansville deserve and explanation for this corporate largesse.
If you wish to send an email question to Vectren you may do so at the following link:
http://www.vectren.com/sendIssue.do
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The monopoly allowed to Vectren needs to be broken. Other energy suppliers need to be let into this region so we the people can get a fair price for energy. Vectren has been allowed to be a monopoly and overcharge for way to long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If they simply refuse to reply…
How about publicly appealing to the rate-setting bureaucrats, mentioning the politicians that appointed them to their posts, to explain their actions?
Everyone should call the Vectren PR dept. To get their explanation…..it’s very interesting……I bet the Courier and Press won’t post a similar article….I bet they get a break on their electric! I know places, like the big business gets these huge bills, and pay them in quarter years, but if you are a couple of weeks late, they will turn you off quicker then a blink of an eye! How much did that top 10% of Vectren make this year? I bet it was more then the bottom 75% of the local population…maybe even combined?!
Remember though, that Vectren can only charge what the REGULATORY BUREAUCRATS allow…
I doubt C&P gets a discount.
But hell look at that MASSIVE property tax abatement we gave Vectren to build their HQ. We’re getting screwed from multiple directions here.
Let’s all give good ol’ Johnny Blair a ring too.
No doubt about it, just a bunch of admirable and “quality” people in control of Vectren.
Where are our Representatives on this issue, let’s get their reaction to this dispicible thievery by Vectren.
Everyone on the Vectren board should be ostricized, and reviled when seen in public.
IS IT TRUE that a history of not just a consistently high dividend… but a consistently INCREASING dividend, for 51 consecutive years! (http://www.snl.com/irweblinkx/file.aspx?IID=4057065&FID=10329398) Through both good times and very bad, must beg a couple questions. Fundamentally, with the approval of regulatory bureaucrats, just how much blood can be squeezed from the turnip? As well, couldn’t this high customer charge with a high investor yield be labeled – “redistribution”?
I would really love to start something. what if all of us could turn our power off at the breaker box 3 or 4 times a week. Or maybe all of us at once. I know it would not be easy but man I am giving these people way to much of my families money. I dont get to eat steaks or lobster or living high on the hog. Not looking for pity but come one people, vectren cant beat all of us together…
Everyone should contact the local news stations and papers. If enough people complain and take a stand, then no one company can silence them.
While Vectren residential rates are high, your calculations for Duke Energy are wrong. It looks like you neglected to add in the trackers. Vectren is still higher but not that much higher. See this website for a valid comparison:
http://www.in.gov/iurc/files/2011_Residential_Bill_Survey_Presentation.pdf
Plus Duke customers will continue to increase due to Edwardsport and more environmental controls.
i’ll tell you what vectren will say… they will say that they have higher prices to cover the costs of those who have outstanding balances with them, money that they haven’t received. in turn, they charge everyone else for the outstanding bills (or so their excuse goes.) ultimately, if they were to use the raised costs to cover old bills, why are none of the old debtors taken off their debt list? here’s the problem; i live and have lived in poverty for several years and have an outstanding bill with them that is over $1000 (probably a lot more by now). i have tried for years to set up payments with them, but they refuse the money. they want all of the money or none of it. they tell me that they are not a “pay-center”. so the next time i have a thousand-plus dollars laying around with nothing else to do with it, i guess i’ll mosey on over to the vectren mafia and give them that stack… yeah, right.