At a recent meeting, Councilwoman Katrina Wilson asked how to explain to constituents why electric seems high in the City of Milford. In the past, council has stated that the city has one of the lowest electric rates in the state, but many constituents feel the rates are much higher. With recent increases in electric rates among all local power companies, council members were receiving additional complaints about rates.
“The majority of it is the more people use, the more we have to purchase,” Willis Schaefer, Director of Public Works, said. “We had a very rough winer and some cold stretches. The colder it is, the more your heater runs so we have seen a direct correlation with how much they are consuming and the temperature.”
Schaefer explained that many people are under the assumption that having a heat pump is more efficient, so they should not be paying as much.
“The reality is, when you get below freezing temperatures, you go on resistive heating and that is not as efficient as running a heat pump directly,” Schaefer said.
Mayor Todd Culotta explained that the topic of electric rates came up at a recent meeting he attended, pointing out Milford was still very competitive due to purchasing power from DEMEC.
“One of the things that has happened is that we’re dependent on generation that is coming from outside of Delaware,” City Manager Mark Whitfield said. “Since Indian River was the only plant in Delaware, its closure has added additional transmission costs as well as congestion costs, because now we’re actually causing congestion on the lines because of the amount of power we are drawing from outside.”
Whitfield pointed out that some of it was state energy policies that are very restrictive related to fossil fuel generation in Delaware with more focus on solar and wind power.
“The fact of the matter is, we have to have fossil fuel as a backup or revival source,” Whitfield said. “So, one of the things we have asked is provide input to legislators on what our energy policy should be, what are things that need to happen throughout the state to be able to provide us with electricity at a more competitive cost because as long as we are dependent upon generation outside the Delmarva Peninsula, the costs will go up.”
Culotta pointed out that Milford had a break point in electric that incentivizes property owners to make their home or business more efficient. However, when it is very cold and the heat pump or emergency heat is running, the costs rise which is not the fault of the property owner.
“It does have a pretty dramatic effect on the system itself,” Whitfield said. “A good example is we lost power in the fourth ward one very, very cold night and it was because too much power was going through one transformer to the point we had to add a second transformer, so it impacts our system as well.”
Councilwoman Madula Kalesis questioned how to tell constituents the reason their electric bill was higher was due to the cold when they use oil or gas heat.
“We do have the capability to show you a very direct correlation of what the outside temperature was to the amount of electricity you used and, I can tell you, I’ve looked at a number of them over the past few weeks and you can see it,” Whitfield said. “We know how much electricity went through your meter, how you used it, I can’t explain.”
Schaefer explained that even other types of heat relied on electricity to operate.
“Just because someone is using oil heat or gas burners, their blower still runs on electric, the pump needs to run no matter what their fuel system is,” Schaefer said. “And that’s not to say they don’t have other auxiliary heating such as baseboard or electric heaters. Once it goes through the meter, all we can do is talk to them and speculate.”
Whitfield stated that the city can provide information on ways to lower electric usage, even when the weather is cold. He also suggested that property owners look into Efficiency SMART to help cut costs.
“But the more you guys can talk to your wards and say, “here’s the major drivers for it,” because it obviously becomes a burden on customer service,” Schafer said.
Anyone interested in learning more about how to reduce electric costs can visit Efficiency Smart online or call the City of Milford Customer Service Department at 302-422-6616.
