As many of you already know, most Illinois electric providers are now importing low sulfur western coal in order to avoid the expenditures required to install pollution control equipment, and I don’t have to tell anyone from this area how much damage has been done to our local economy by the practice of burning western coal.

In 1963, SouthEastern was one of three electric cooperatives that built the Southern Illinois Power Cooperative Generating Plant at the Lake of Egypt.  That plant has always burned locally mined coal, and is currently spending some $16 million dollars a year for fuel.  The influx of that $16 million dollars into the local economy, combined with the power plant’s payroll for over 100 employees and their property tax assessment of $1.2 million per year, has a definite positive impact on all of Southern Illinois, and that impact is magnified when combined with SouthEastern’s payroll for 80 employees and the taxes we pay each year.

The Lake of Egypt Power Plant is in the process of a $230 million dollar upgrade which will allow the continued use of locally mined coal and reduce emissions by more than 75%.  Those improvements will also increase the plant’s capacity and availability, and will help SouthEastern avoid the roller coaster pricing pattern so prevalent in today’s wholesale energy market.

Last year SouthEastern implemented its first general rate increase in 18 years in order to address the impact of almost two decades of inflation and a 5.25% increase in wholesale power cost.

To cover the ongoing cost of improvements at the Lake of Egypt Power Plant, our power supplier implemented an additional 4% wholesale power cost increase this September and has notified us of additional rate increases of 5% and 4%, which are to be implemented in September of 2003 and 2004.

Since last year’s rate increase was not sufficient to cover these additional wholesale power cost increases, SouthEastern will need to implement a 7.5% overall rate increase effective with the January 2003 meter readings.

The increase will be based, as much as possible, on the Cooperative’s actual cost of providing service to like groups of members.  The rate increase for SouthEastern’s 19,800 residential members will equate to about 9.4% overall for the group, and the 325 small commercial members on the B-4 rate will have an increase mirroring that of the residential members.

The 1,100 medium sized commercial members on Rate Schedule "B-1" will see rates increase for their group by 4.6% overall, and the 28 large commercial accounts will have rate increases of approximately 9.3%.  The increase for the 550 seasonal accounts will be 9%, and the 56 irrigation and 27 municipal pumping accounts will see increases of 9.4% and 9.3%, respectively.  SouthEastern’s ten industrial accounts will see increases of approximately 4.4%, but no increase will be applied for security lighting and municipal street lighting and the rates for those services will remain the same as they have been for the past several years.

Obviously, the space allotted for this column is not sufficient to list the percentage increases for the range of usage that might occur in each Rate Schedule, but hopefully the above information will assist our members in their budgeting efforts for the coming year.