March 21. By Dave Vieser. Cornelius ratepayers who live in those areas of the town served by ElectriCities received the good news during the pre-agenda town board meeting March 21 that there will be no electric rate increase next year.
The projections were revealed to the town commissioners by ElectriCities Manager Kathy Moyer. “The cost of wholesale electric rate production should be stable during the next several years following the restructuring of debt, so we see no need to ask for any increase in rates, certainly not in fiscal year 2017,” Moyer said.
The rate freeze would impact only those residents and businesses in Cornelius served by Electricities, which includes most electric customers between Highways 115 and 21. The last rate increase was in 2014.
Most customers west of the interstate have Energy United (EU) as their electricity provider, and about 2500 customers in town are served by Duke Energy.
EU is a co-op, while Duke Energy is an investor-owned, profit-making utility. Both establish their rates independent of ElectriCities.
Technically, Cornelius is a public power community, which means the town at one time owned and operated the portions of the electric supply systems serving the older section of each community. It eventually merged with Huntersville, and in 1997 ElectriCities, the trade organization for public power communities, was chosen to operate that portion of the two towns’ electric grid.