What is going on at Tri-County Electric CO-OP? I just received my electric bill from TCEC for the month of June. I used less kilowatt hours in that month that the previous month but my amount due increased. The cost of electricity for the first 1000 kilowatt hours and the cost of any usage over the initial 1000 hours has not changed. What has changed is the WPCA, which stands for Wholesale Power Cost Adjustment. This charge increased once again from $27.00 per 1000 kilowatt hours to $30.00 per 1000 kilowatt hours. Supposedly this is a charge that fluctuates with the cost of fuel to produce electricity. I spoke to a customer service representative yesterday that confirmed this which is also stated on the TCEC website. She could not provide any details as to why the increase again. My suspicion is this charge is to pay for the numerous solar panel installations popping up all over Madison county as well as all over north central Florida that I doubt many people in the area are happy about. At best the entire state of Florida gets 10% of its electricity from solar, but at what cost? There are literally thousands of acres of land littered with solar panels basically rendering once excellent farmland useless and barren. When I first moved to Madison this WPCA used to be a credit on my bill each month. I hate to make this political but that was during President Trump’s first term which had an energy friendly administration. Then in comes Joe Biden that had anything but a energy friendly agenda and that is when the WPCA went from a credit to a charge and steadily increased over that four years along with the cost of everything.. Now the energy friendly Trump administration is back, gas prices are going down, inflation is going down, prices in general are decreasing, but Tri-County Electric is once again increasing their Wholesale Power Cost Adjustment. Why? I urge anyone that attends their district meetings or the annual meeting in September to stand up and ask the question about this issue.
James F. Van Horn
Madison, Florida