Electricity Customers To See 9% Price Hike

Turning on a light will get a more expensive in just a few days for Edison Sault Electric customers. A 9% rate hike will be reflected in January bills. Residential customers who use 750 kilowatt hours a month will pay $68.64 in January, while this month they paid $63.06 for the same amount of power.

Edison Sault normally uses low-cost hydro generation to produce about 40% of the electricity it sells. The remaining 60% must be purchased form outside sources, often at higher rates. With lower volumes of water available from Lake Superior, Edison Sault expects hydro generation could make up only 20% of its electricity.

In November, Edison Sault announced it was working with Cloverland Electric Cooperative to address electricity supply issues cause by the dropping water levels on Lake Superior.

The two companies have been discussing power needs with American Transmission Company of Wisconsin, which owns and operates the high-voltage electric transmission system in the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin. American Transmission has been upgrading transmission lines to bolster the supply of electricity it will make available to Edison Sault and Cloverland.

With these improvements, "Edison Sault will be importing up to 75% of its electricity needs through the ATC high-voltage electric transmission system.

This is substantially more than at any other point in our history, which dates back to 1892," Edison President Donald Sawruk.

Edison Sault is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wisconsin Energy corporation in Milwaukee.