WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A settlement between Kansas agencies and Westar Energy may lead to utility customers seeing rate drops instead of previously expected increases.
The settlement reached Monday would reverse Westars request for a $17 million rate increase and turn it into a $66 million rate cut. The settlement also drops Westars efforts to raise the basic per-month service charge, the Wichita Eagle reported .
The three-member Kansas Corporation Commission must still approve the settlement, which could end whats been a hotly contested fight over rates that brought hundreds of angry customers and Kansas lawmakers to recent public hearings in Wichita and Topeka.
Regular electric customers would see a rate decrease of about $4 a month under the agreement, according to David Nickel, consumer counsel for the Citizens Utility Ratepayer Board, the small state agency representing residential and small-business customers.
Customers could still face a fight over the future of solar energy in the state. The settlement would allow Westar to charge an extra fee for customers who get some of their power from home solar panels but buy power from Westar when its dark or cloudy.
Solar customers under the settlement would pay $9 per kilowatt in the summer and $3 per kilowatt in the winter for their highest one-hour kilowatt usage in a given month.
Some people (solar customers) are going to be really unhappy, and some people are going to be somewhat happy, Nickel said.
The settlement agreement includes the Ratepayer Board, the commission, the Wichita school district and the Kansas Industrial Consumers group, Nickel said. The main holdouts are the Sierra Club, the Climate and Energy Project and other group advocating for Westars solar customers.
Nickel said it would be impossible to reach an agreement that satisfies every customer, but that the settlement is positive for most of the approximately 700,000 Westar customers represented by the Ratepayer Board.
