“Our TEP bills are too high now,” writes Janelle Menick in a public comment on the ongoing Tucson Electric Power rate case. Hal Bergsma asks how people on fixed incomes will afford a rise in prices. “Will they eat less, cut back on medication or set their thermostat at a higher, unhealthy temperature during the summer?”
As Tucson prepares to enter the dog days of Southern Arizona’s extreme summer heat, those questions are among the many raised in an ongoing rate case in which Tucson’s electric utility is asking state regulators to raise rates given both the high cost of maintaining the local energy grid and the need to keep making a return for investors.
TEP provides services to about 455,000 customers in Pima County and the Fort Huachuca U.S. Army base in Cochise County. About 90% of the company’s customers are residential…