COLUMBUS, Ohio — A new plan by AEP Ohio wants to improve the company's power grids to avoid outages like the one many residents experienced last summer. But that plan comes with a proposed rate increase.
The company submitted the $2.2 billion plan to Public Utilities Commission of Ohio for review.
Lisa Kelso, the Vice President Regulatory and Finance for AEP Ohio, says they don't expect the chaos we saw this summer to happen again with the new improvements.
"We have hundreds of assets that are going to reach the end of their useful life in the next 10 years and by making these improvements, we'll be able to improve reliability and the resiliency of the grid for our customers," Kelso said.
She says the number one cause of outages is downed trees on powerlines and this plan will continue to invest in tree trimmings.
"We invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our distribution systems. So this is just building upon some of the investments that we're already making into our system," Kelso said.
If passed, the average customer will pay 2% more each year, about $4 more a month.
"We know that there are customers that are experiencing financial hardship and we'd encourage you to reach out give us a call," Kelso said.
Kelso said AEP Ohio will be proposing some offerings in this plan including a $5 a month discount for senior citizens and energy efficiency programs that will help low income customers reduce their usage.
Some customers say they don't mind the increase if it means more reliability.
"If we're gonna have to spend a little bit more to make it more reliable for everybody, then that's an okay expense to have,' says Eric Brembeck, owner of Studio 35 Cinema & Drafthouse.
Brembeck says his business was out of power for about a day, but had backup generators. He said though they had to close that day, they didn't lose much product and would be happy to pay the increase for the improved service.
"If it's more reliable, and we don't have to worry about our insurance rates going up or worrying about if a storm comes through," says Brembeck.
However, others are frustrated, like Mount Vernon resident Homer Claypool, who was out of power for a week.
"They can just charge us whatever and we've gotta live every day so we have to pay it, we ain't got no choice," Claypool said.
If the six-term proposal gets approved, it would start June 2024.