Starting in August, PECO will give out one-time grants of $500 to eligible customers who have fallen behind on paying their electricity bills during the costly summer months.
The utility company’s $10 million customer relief fund was announced Wednesday in partnership with the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, which will administer the program. Grant applications will open Aug. 4 for low- and moderate-income households that earn between 151% and 300% of the federal poverty line. For a family of four, that range equals between $48,547 and $96,450 per year.
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Customers who are more than $500 behind on a bill may still have their service disconnected if the full balance remains unpaid, and those with service already disconnected are not guaranteed to get it back by applying for the program. Grants will be available until the end of the year.
Although PECO already has programs to reduce costs for low-income customers, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis said the new fund is aimed at helping a broader demographic.
“The PECO Customer Relief Fund targets those who far too often fall between the cracks – hard-working families who make too much to qualify for assistance, but not enough to be financially secure,” Davis said. “No Pennsylvanian should have to choose between keeping the lights on or paying for their prescriptions or groceries.”
Electricity suppliers in the state raised their rates in June, including PECO’s 12.6% hike that increased customer bills by an average of $8 per month.
Growing demand on the electricity grid is the biggest driver of rising costs – especially the expansion of energy-intensive data centers – but much of the focus on containing costs has surrounded reforming the way prices are set and better managing supply.
PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that covers Pennsylvania and 12 other states, held its yearly capacity auction earlier this month to guarantee future electricity supply from utility operators. After PJM set a record price cap in last year’s auction, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee that led to a settlement to keep utility bills from spiking again this year.
Shapiro is among a group of nine governors pressuring PJM to update its auction process, expand storage capacity and cooperate more with states to connect a backlog of power projects to the grid. Advocacy groups, like the Natural Resources Defense Council, say PJM has prioritized gas-powered electricity generating plants over solar, wind and hydropower sources.
“Prices went up for two reasons: ever increasing demand from data centers and lower reliability from gas-fired power plants,” NRDC senior advocate Tom Rutigliano said in a statement after PJM’s auction. “… The only real solution to higher energy prices is to keep adding more renewable energy and storage to the grid.”
Some energy industry forecasts project that the tax cuts President Donald Trump signed into law in early July will further raise power prices because there will be fewer incentives available for solar and wind projects. As the costs of those projects increase and the country shifts reliance toward more costly natural gas plants for electricity needs, the long-term outlook for investment in renewables becomes murkier.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission says residents should prepare for higher electricity bills in response to this summer’s surge in power usage, which pushed demand to its highest level in 14 years this summer. Customers should review their energy usage, make changes to use less electricity and take advantage of assistance programs if they qualify.
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