TECO defending company's request for a rate hike

FOX 13's Aaron Mesmer reports.

TAMPA - Tampa Electric Company's executives, including its CEO, are in Tallahassee this week, defending the company's request for a rate hike.

TECO is asking state regulators to approve $445 million in rate increases during the next three years. CEO Archie Collins said the company needs more revenue to pay for expenses, including equipment, fuel and future storm responses.

"We pride ourselves on being transparent, fair minded, and deserving of your trust," Collins said during more than seven hours of testimony spread across two days. "On an inflation adjusted basis, our residential rates today are unchanged from where they were a decade ago."

The rate hearing is expected to last all week, with lawyers grilling Collins about rising power bills that consumer advocates said have caused trust in TECO to slip.

"For too long, TECO and the industrial customers have relied on hard working residential customers and small businesses to be the piggy bank to subsidize their costs," said Bradley Marshall with Florida Rising.

Collins acknowledged, if the request is approved, rates would likely approach 2023 levels again, when homeowners saw their bills spike, leading to complaints about affordability.

He was also pressed about internal documents indicating "energy poverty" is on the rise; this describes situations when energy bills take up too much of a family's income.

"Affordability is, as you know, it's such a subjective term. It means something different to everyone. What you might consider affordable is different than what I might consider affordable," Collins said. "For some of our lower income customers. They, you know, they they felt the pinch."

The company has said there are programs available to help customers who are struggling to afford their energy bills.

Patricia Christensen, an advocate with the Florida Office of Public Counsel, said affordability shouldn't be hard to define.

"It is a basic concept and I pay for the electricity that I need?" she said, adding she worries the answer for a lot of people will be 'no.' "We respectfully request that you reduce TECO'S unreasonable demands to only what is really needed to provide safe, reliable and affordable electricity."

TECO lowered its rates twice this year due to lower natural gas costs. The company is not the only utility to ask for an increase; Duke Energy already came to an agreement with state regulators on a rate hike for next year.

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