San Antonio – The San Antonio City Council will decide Thursday if CPS Energy customers’ bills will go up next year.
The utility has requested a 4.25% increase to its base gas and electric rates, starting in February 2024 — the second increase in two years. The proposal would raise the average residential customer’s bill by an estimated $4.45 each month, though the utility officials say CPS Energy’s rates will still be among the lowest in Texas.
The five-member CPS Energy Board of Trustees unanimously approved the increase on Monday, but the city-owned utility also needs city council’s approval.
The proposed increase would bring in an additional $85 million for CPS Energy every year. The utility’s plans for the money include replacing aging technology, more tree trimming, keeping up with the system’s growth, planning for a wave of pending retirements, and working toward converting a coal plant to natural gas.
READ MORE: 4 things to know about proposed CPS Energy rate hike
But with customers already seeing their budgets squeezed by the rising price of everything from groceries to car insurance, increasing the size of another bill is unlikely to be a popular decision.
Roughly one of every six of the utility’s customers is behind on their CPS Energy bills. Most of them are residential customers, rather than businesses.
“Everything else is going up, except our pay,” Terry Robinson said Wednesday outside CPS Energy’s East Side customer service center.
However, Robinson also added “I mean, $4, $5 – not too bad. But, I mean, if it’s for a good cause, then I’m all for it.”
With no change to its rates since February 2014, the utility had been considering a large, double-digit increase as recently as the fall of 2021. However, it ended up pursuing a series of smaller, more regular rate hikes, instead.
The first was a 3.85% base rate increase and a bump in the fuel adjustment charge. Utility trustees and the San Antonio City Council approved that rate hike in January 2022, and it took effect that March.
CPS Energy is already planning a third increase in 2026, which it currently estimates will be about 5.5%. It’s unclear whether a fourth will follow.
“I’m hopeful that we can get to (fiscal year) 2027 and see where we are,” CPS Energy President and CEO Rudy Garza told reporters after Monday’s vote. “You know, maybe there might be… one (rate increase) in the outer years, but I’m not even going to flash that right now because I’d really like to see us get going on building or buying or doing whatever we’re going to do to bring in some new generation assets and then kind of re-calibrate where we are financially.”
Mayor Ron Nirenberg serves on both the city council and CPS Energy Board of Trustees and has been a vocal supporter of the increase.
“The cost of not investing in our community asset is that it won’t be there when we need it. And we know the costs of that and the impacts of it,” Nirenberg said during Monday’s meeting.
Though the 11-member city council appears poised to pass the increase, it’s unlikely to give the same unanimous stamp of approval the five utility trustees did.
Councilwoman Teri Castillo (D5) and Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) voted against the 2022 rate increase and have voiced concerns about this one, too. Both have suggested the city or utility hire a “consumer advocate” to help develop rate requests.
Former Councilman Clayton Perry (D10) had joined the pair in voting against the 2022 base rate increase. However, the North Side councilman voted in favor of increasing the fuel adjustment charge, which is being used to pay off costs related to the 2021 freeze.
Perry’s successor on the dais, Councilman Marc Whyte (D10), has also shown reservations about the rate proposal.
You can watch the live stream of the San Antonio City Council vote in this article on Thursday at 9 a.m.
For a better look at how much the rate increase would affect your bill, you can try CPS Energy’s Residential Bill Estimator.
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