CPS Energy had enough financial flexibility to push its rate increase down the road, the public utility\u2019s staff told its board at meeting Monday, after $170 million in incentives and other savings helped close its budget gap.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had unexpected favorable circumstances this year that allowed us to navigate this year without a rate request, but we expect that we will need to have that conversation for next year,\u201d Chief Financial Officer Debra Wainscott told the utility\u2019s board.<\/p>\n
CPS Energy received a $115 million nuclear production incentive from the federal government. Shifting the timeline for a study of transmission cost of service could have a roughly $50 million positive impact on CPS Energy\u2019s transmission revenue. The utility is also expecting to save $5 million on debt payments because of lower-than-expected interest and premiums.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s balanced against financial headwinds that have hit CPS Energy this year. The utility is already expecting a shortfall of at least $50 million.<\/p>\n
Milder weather this year led to a $40 million shortfall in retail energy sales and a $100 million shortfall in wholesale revenue. Meanwhile, storms and outages added $20 million to $30 million in extra costs.<\/p>\n
The idea of a rate increase has loomed since CPS Energy presented a budget with a $50 million shortfall<\/a> in March. That set off discussions in the community and with the City of San Antonio<\/a>, which owns the utility, on whether rates should be increased.<\/p>\n CPS Energy officials put the issue to bed earlier this month<\/a>, when the utility announced it would not change rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a press release, officials cited affordability pressures on residents as the reason.<\/p>\n CPS Energy originally planned to request rate increases every other year beginning in 2021, but it hadn\u2019t implemented a request since 2024.<\/p>\n Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones serves on CPS Energy\u2019s board. She confirmed the utility\u2019s infrastructure needs did not necessitate a rate increase.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the infrastructure needed it, CPS would have asked for it. Correct?\u201d Jones asked.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to get to a point where we do not need it this year,\u201d confirmed Interim CEO Frank Almaraz.<\/p>\n Wainscott said CPS Energy uses a variety of metrics to track its budget and decide when it needs to ask for a rate increase. Large utilities like CPS Energy often need to borrow money for large projects and need to show good financial standing to borrow enough money at lower interest rates.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that we didn\u2019t go for a rate request is still putting pressure on our metrics,\u201d
Wainscott said. \u201cWe\u2019re pushing the top of that range here. So it\u2019s still very, very challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CPS Energy had enough financial flexibility to push its rate increase down the road, the public utility\u2019s staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-477889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}