Summertime electricity bills are about to hit New Yorkers hard as air conditioning units get ready to rattle across the five boroughs.
“These are all bills I have to pay! And all going up and up! Car insurance bill, grocery bill, now utility bills,” Pat Barberini, a retired postal worker of Queens, told The Post Thursday afternoon.
“Honestly, if my wife wasn’t still working we’d have the windows open and not turn on the AC all summer.”
And the juice will only get less sweet if the state approves a 12% hike at the behest of Con Edison over the next three years.
“ConEd’s a monopoly,” fellow Queens resident Thomas Cass, a retired restaurateur, exclaimed. “We don’t have an alternative.”
The electric utility behemoth is pushing the state Public Service Commission to approve controversial plans to boost electricity bills by several percentage points each year through 2025, with a vote expected sometime in the upcoming months.
A monthly electricity bill of $83.50 last year would jump to $87 this year if the Commission greenlights a 3.8% increase as ConEd proposed in February.
That amount would rise to more than $90 net year and nearly $94 by 2025 assuming a household consumes 300 kilowatt hours per month – about half of an average American household.
An increase appears likely, but Commission spokesman James Denn kept his cards close when asked by The Post for details.
“The PSC is in the midst of an extensive top-to-bottom review of Con Edison, its finances, and its customer service procedures. Members of the public and public officials are strongly encouraged to continue submitting their comments, which are accepted up to a final Commission decision,” he said.
“No decision has been made regarding Con Edison’s rates. A rate case decision is expected later this year.”
ConEd, which did not immediately provide comment Thursday, has long argued such increases are necessary in order to maintain service levels and infrastructure while the state energy sector undergoes big changes that include lessening the state’s dependence on fossil fuels as green energy development continues.
The projected rate increase will be far too high for New Yorkers,” said Laurie Wheelock, executive director of the Public Utility Law Project of New York, told The City when the proposal became public in February.
Natural gas prices are also on the rise, with National Grid floating a 17% rate hike just last month.
Skyrocketing energy costs are leaving some New Yorkers like Uber driver Barbara L. of Bedford-Stuyvesant feeling a bit lost about what to do in response at a time of historically-high inflation and economic uncertainties.
“I just bought a plug-in hybrid! I got it to deal with gas prices and now… what the hell am I doing?” Barbara L. said.
“I’m trying to roll with it, but everything’s getting ridiculous.”