Don’t Let Old Man Winter Drive Up Your Energy Bills

01/11/2019

Cold weather came early this winter and is sticking around in The Natural State. While many of our customers associate hot temperatures with a rise in their electricity bill, sometimes they forget that very cold temperatures can also cause higher bills.

A cold snap in early 2018 caused sticker shock for many of our customers when their electricity bills arrived in the mail. Don’t let that happen to your family in the New Year. Make a plan to manage your usage and your Entergy bill.

It’s likely many customers will see high bills in January 2019. That’s because it takes more energy to keep a home comfortable at 68 degrees when it is 15 degrees outside than when it is 34 degrees. Simply put, the bigger the difference between inside and outside temperatures, the more energy you use. Using more electricity costs more money.

This is especially true in cases where the home is heated with electricity and the home is not insulated well. Mobile homes are especially at risk of high bills in winter because they often are both all-electric and inefficient. Space heaters also require significant electricity, causing big spikes in usage.

Beginning in January, there will be a nominal increase in a line item on the bill called the Formula Rate Plan Rider. For a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours per month, the increase in this rider will result in an increase of $4.65 per month.

The Formula Rate Plan portion of the bill is relatively insignificant compared to the Energy Usage portion of the bill. Energy Usage is the charge for the amount of kilowatt hours of electricity a residential customer uses each month. The amount we charge for a kilowatt hour will not change in 2019.

Entergy Arkansas provides several ways for customers to manage their energy usage and make the bills more predictable.

Entergy Solutions – We offer many programs that are free to customers through rebates and incentives that will make homes and businesses more energy efficient. Some programs even pay you to use less electricity. Go to our website to find the right programs for your needs. You don’t have to be a traditional homeowner to take advantage of the savings. There are programs for apartments and manufactured homes.

Level Billing – Using a 12-month rolling average, Level Billing can make your bill more predicable each month and allow for better budgeting. There are no surprises when the outside temperatures are extremely cold in the winter or hot in the summer. We also offer flexible options for paying your bill, including what time of month your bill is due through Pick-A-Date.

For customers struggling to pay their winter energy bills, Entergy Arkansas offers a program that assists elderly and disabled low-income customers through our customer-assistance fund called The Power to Care. It is funded by Entergy employees, customers and shareholders. For more information on The Power to Care and other programs that can help residents with bill assistance, visit the Help for Paying Your Electric Bills section of the Entergy website.

Entergy Arkansas provides electricity to approximately 700,000 customers in 63 counties. Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including nearly 9,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.9 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of approximately $11 billion and more than 13,000 employees.

-30-