‘Insane’ & ‘ridiculous’ Georgia Power bills hit Columbus. What’s causing rate spikes?

Columbus native Kat Cannella, has resided in her Mohina Woods home for 12 years.

Cannella is a Coldwell Banker Realtor who lives with her two children and partner in a 2,000-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-bedroom bath abode. They have the typical amenities like a refrigerator, a TV, a washer and dryer.

Two years ago was the first time Cannella, 41, noticed that her Georgia Power electric bill was over $300.

But this summer, Cannella received a $400 power bill, even with her home thermostat set at 81 degrees.

“It’s insane,” she said. “We keep our house hot as hell.”

Cannella is one of dozens of people who told the Ledger-Enquirer their power bills are higher than ever before, despite keeping the house temperature above 78 degrees — and using Georgia Power’s recommended tips of blocking out sunlight with towels, using fans and setting schedules to use the washer and dryer.

Residents in Columbus and Georgia are feeling the pressure from three converging forces: higher energy rates from Plant Vogtle, covering the cost of natural gas and hotter summers.

Cannella sleeps with half of her body out of the covers and her legs kicked out to stay comfortable in her warm house. A standing fan blows around the 81-degree air in the living room.

Cannella admitted her air conditioner is not working as efficiently as it could. Her workaround in the summertime is creating what she called the “cold room” in the house.

In that room, her family put towels and blankets over all of the windows in an effort to keep heat from entering through the glass. The room also has an AC window unit that blows cold air. The cold room is at 70 degrees.

On the other side of town, Iya Taylor is paying a Georgia Power electric bill that is more than her $450 car loan.

A Georgia Power energy bill nearly doubles

Taylor, a Georgia Department of Transportation program associate, is married with two sons. The family lives in a three-bedroom, two-bath home in Southeast Columbus off Steam Mill Road.

“It’s not huge,” she said, referring to the size of her house. “We turn up the air conditioning to 75 and utilize fans more, but,” Taylor said, “I need to turn it down because it’s just too uncomfortable.”

Like the Cannellas, the Taylors have everyday household appliances. Taylor’s house also has trees that provide shade over the house.

However, Taylor’s Georgia Power energy bill nearly doubled from $265 in May to $505 in June and then increased to $566 in July. The Taylor household used 2,589 kWh of energy in July.

“It’s ridiculous,” she said.

Taylor’s sons nicknamed her a “power ranger” because she constantly reminds them and their friends to turn off the lights and TV if they aren’t being used or, “if you leave the room”.

“We wash our laundry on two specific days to decrease water usage and we bought blackout curtains for the house last summer,” something she said does make a difference.

The water heater for laundry and the dryer are the biggest appliance demands – outside of an EV charger or a swimming pool pump, according to Georgia Power.

How your power bill is calculated

A Georgia Power bill is calculated with an equation of a base service charge plus the kilowatt per hour of electricity used.

There are seven different rate plans that a customer can choose. Canella and Taylor are both on the residential service, the basic charge.

“We do encourage customers to learn about and consider the seven different rate options to consider what would be best for their budget and lifestyle,” said John Kraft, a spokesperson for Georgia Power.

But most use the standard residential service, he added.

Right now the base service charge is 46 cents per day, year-round. The additional kW/h charge goes up between June and September by the amount of kW/h used: It’s 8 cents at 650 kW/h, 13 cents once above that and an extra penny above 1,000 kW/h.

If customers use the Summer Nights and Weekends plan, the summer kW/h rate rate goes up an additional 29 cents per kW/h from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. due to the increased load that Georgians put on the grid. But people can save money if they’re signed up for Nights and Weekends and they reduce their electricity usage during those hours. The rate is 7 cents kWh for all other hours with the Nights and Weekends rate.

The Ledger-Enquirer was unable to obtain details as to whether Georgia Power’s basic service charge or the kW/h of energy used has changed over the years. But, the overall bill has increased anywhere from 10-30% in the last three years.

Approved rate increases

A five-member body of the Georgia Public Service Commission regulates all requests by Georgia Power’s Integrated Resource Plan, which is updated every three years. Once the plan is approved, the commission holds a rate case to determine how much Georgia Power customers pay for their electricity.

Here are the rate increases the PSC approved in the last three years, according to Georgia Power and Cool Planet Solutions

• Jan. 1, 2023: bill increase of 2.6% from 2022 rate case proceeding (Dec. 2022)
• June 1, 2023: bill increase of 12.7% from fuel cost recovery proceeding (May 2023)
• Aug. 1, 2023: bill increase of 4.8% for Vogtle reactor 3 (2017)
• Jan. 1, 2024: bill increase of 4.5% from 2022 rate case (Dec. 2022)
• May 1, 2024: bill increase of 6.2% for Vogtle reactor 4 (Dec. 2023)

Rates are scheduled to continue to increase due to a variety of factors, such as cleaning up coal ash and paying for Vogtle units 3 and 4 .

The Canella household was not immune to these rate hikes. Their bill increased by 10% from June 2023 to June 2024 with almost identical energy usage.

Does hot weather affect your power bill? GP won’t say

In the past four years, Columbus has seen average temperatures between 77 and 83 degrees in June. Low temperatures have dipped to 60 degrees, and highs have hit 102. These high temperatures do not account for heat indexes, which calculate humidity, typically adding several degrees to the “feels like” index temperature.

June 2023 was cooler in Columbus by 5 degrees on average. And June of 2022 was warmer than June 2024.

So can the weather be to blame?

“It would be impossible to figure out from a single customer’s bill what the influence of temperature on electricity cost is,” Matthew Oliver , an energy economic professor at Georgia Tech, wrote in an email to the Ledger-Enquirer. “In order to say that with any reasonable degree of accuracy, you need data on bill factors like building characteristics, spatial variation analysis (how close the home is to a hotter urban area from the heat island effect) and average monthly temperature, and you need to do it for thousands of households over a period of multiple years.”

There are team members at Georgia Power dedicated to understanding all the factors that influence bills, including thermostat settings, type of home, size and condition of home (insulation, air gaps, natural shade, appliances), rate options chosen and number of people in the home. Weather factors are supposed to be evaluated too. Hotter weather requires more air conditioning, blackout curtains, insulation in windows and more.

Georgia Power told the Ledger-Enquirer it couldn’t answer questions about how much temperature has influenced bills because the company “would have to use restricted data that would divulge non-public information,” Georgia Power spokesperson John Kraft wrote in an email.

The nonpublic information would violate “Fair Disclosure, Regulation FD” under the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission prohibit corporations from disclosing outside of the reporting periods,” he wrote.

What climate scientists know with certainty is that Columbus is experiencing more frequent hot summer days followed by warm nights, which they attribute to climate change. According to Climate Central, hot temperatures have become more common, with 17 more days of temperatures hitting 95-plus degrees than there were in 1970.

“I’m afraid of what the bill will be like for August,” Canella said.

How to save money on your power bill

In a viral NextDoor post by Tina Mickle , several people asked what could be done about these sky-high bills, after Mickle said she had a bill at $818in July for her June usage. Mickle later added she has a swimming pool.

Kraft, the Georgia Power spokesperson, said to make sure the rate plan the household is signed up for is best for them.

Bob Sherrier, a Southern Environmental Law Center staff attorney who worked on the rate cases this year, told the Ledger-Enquirer, “These bills are pretty shocking, and it is important to know your rate plan.”

“It takes time but it can be worth it,” he said. “Consider updating to more energy-efficient appliances.”

Sherrier said to consider getting solar panels on your roof.

The pilot program, Georgia BRIGHT helped a few people in Columbus, GA starting in March . The program makes it so people making under $150,000 can acquire panels with substantially lower costs, at around 20% a month. The pilot phase will continue until the end of the year. In January 2025, it will become Solar for All thanks to the EPAs’ $156 million dollar grant. That will continue through May 2029.

Georgia Power offers a free energy audit to customers. Understanding where air conditioning could be leaking or when it might make sense to use a ceiling fan over an AC unit are things an auditor could determine.

Depending on the household size and whether a family is making less than $105,000 annually, the household could qualify for a $33.50 off a new income-qualified discount .

United Way offers assistance with utilities, rent and mortgage. The organization received dozens of calls earlier this summer. In June, the organization received 250 calls, a 38% increase from June 2023, according to United Way’s records.

The Public Service Commission that decides the rate hike percentages are public officials who can be called or emailed, Sherrier said.

How to file a complaint about power rates

Patty Durand, President of Cool Solutions, a consulting group that focuses on helping energy stakeholders in Georgia said to file a complaint on the Public Service Commission website that way all complaints are visible and don’t just end up in District 2 Commissioner, Jason Shaw’s inbox.

She created a website just last week called georgiapowerrobbery.com showing exactly how residents can file complaints.

“We are trying to activate people to raise pressure outside of the commission,” Durand said.

The next Integrated Resource Plan is in January 2025 and a rate case will follow.

“When January 2025 hits, the average bill is going to be $45 more,” Sherrier said.