For the fifth time in the past seven months, Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO), a subsidiary of American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), is reducing its charge to customers for the cost of fuel used to generate electricity. The June reduction in the fuel cost adjustment is largely the result of continued lower prices for natural gas and will help to mitigate and, in some cases, totally offset, the company’s annual return to on-peak prices, which also takes effect in June.
           
PSO usually adjusts the fuel cost portion of customer bills once per year, in June, unless fuel costs change dramatically during the course of the year, as they have over the past seven months. When that happens, an adjustment to fuel factors is made.  PSO monitors fuel costs each month to determine whether an adjustment – up or down – in fuel cost recovery from customers is appropriate.
 
PSO’s on-peak prices are in effect annually from June through October. Off-peak rates apply the remainder of the year.
 
“The higher on-peak rates are intended to encourage more efficient use of our plant and fuel resources during the summer,” said Bobby Mouser, PSO’s director of Customer Services and Marketing. “However, this year, customers will see less of an increase with the return to on-peak prices because they’re being accompanied by another reduction in the company’s fuel charge.”
 
For a residential customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, the net result of the changes will be an increase in the bill from $70.64 to $77.22, or $6.58 per month.
 
"Without the fuel reduction, the change to summer, on-peak rates would result in an $8.90 increase in bills, as compared to the lower off-peak rates,” added Mouser.
 
For many large commercial and industrial customers, whose fuel costs represent a significantly larger portion of their bills compared to residential customers, the reduced fuel charge will actually result in a lower bill for the same amount of electricity used.
 
PSO does not make any profit or markup on fuel costs; customers pay only the actual costs that PSO pays for fuel that is used to generate electricity.
 
PSO, a unit of American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), is an electric utility company serving approximately 527,000 customers in eastern and southwestern Oklahoma.  Based in Tulsa, PSO has 4,405 megawatts of generating capacity, and is the largest provider of wind energy in the state.  News releases and other information about PSO can be found on the World Wide Web at PSOklahoma.com.
 
American Electric Power is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined. AEP’s transmission system directly or indirectly serves about 10 percent of the electricity demand in the Eastern Interconnection, the interconnected transmission system that covers 38 eastern and central U.S. states and eastern Canada, and approximately 11 percent of the electricity demand in ERCOT, the transmission system that covers much of Texas. AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas). AEP’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.