Appalachian Power, Wheeling Power file joint proposal for new infrastructure cost recovery mechanism

A filing with the Public Service Commission of West Virginia (PSC), made this week by Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power, proposes to create a means of recovering costs — an infrastructure tracker — incurred through investments in infrastructure between base rate cases.

“The infrastructure tracker is designed to smooth out customer rates by seeking capital investment recovery annually,” Appalachian Power President and COO Chris Beam said. “For customers, that helps us avoid the large jumps in rates that can happen when costs build up over time.”

The proposal would cap the amount of any annual increase through the tracker to a percentage of the companies’ total retail revenue and allow more timely recovery of costs linked to incremental investments. This would cover any costs not already recovered through current rates and decrease the frequency of base rate case filings, and would be subject to an annual review.

The recovery mechanism would be reset to zero when new base rate filings are approved and go into effect. However, for its initial filing, the companies seek an increase of $49.8 million: a figure based on infrastructure investments made over the period since their last base rate case filing in 2018.

The PSC’s approval would see residential customer rates jump approximately 3.5 percent beginning in June 2021. For Appalachian Power customers, this would represent an increase of around $4.94 for those using 1,000-kilowatt-hours or $8.86 for those using 2,000 kWh.