The cost of making the meter spin faster

When Tampa Bay area utilities raise (or occasionally lower) their electricity rates, it's customary to say what the result would be for a "typical residential monthly bill of 1,000 kilowatt hours."

That may have once been typical, but Kevin Bloom, a spokesman for the Florida Public Service Commission, says that household energy consumption often exceeds that level now because of increased use of home electronics, such as TVs, computers and audio equipment.

So what's really typical today? The median household customer of Tampa Electric used 1,356 kilowatt hours, or kwh, a month in 2002. Progress Florida refuses to specify what its customers' median monthly household usage was last year. Spokesman Adam Perlut will say only that it's "around 1,200." The medium is the midpoint of all users.

TECO's residential rate is 7.357 cents per kwh, no matter how much juice a customer uses.

But there's a catch for Progress' residential customers: As part of a rate-reduction settlement with the state of Florida last year, they pay a slightly higher rate for electricity they use in excess of 1,000 kwh during a given month. Progress charges residential customers 7.021 cents per kwh up to 1,000 kwh, then adds an extra penny, or 14 percent more, for every kwh above that level.

Progress started doing that in July as part of a settlement with the state Office of Public Counsel and consumer groups that lowered rates overall. Last month and in June, the company included flyers in its monthly bills explaining the two-tier system. And the two rates are clearly marked on Progress bills.

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