FABRIC
FILTER NEWSLETTER
January 2010
No. 411
Vectren Corp. charged its residential customers more for electricity last year than any other utility in Indiana, according to state regulators, and it is asking for permission to raise those rates even higher. The increase, if approved, is expected to add about $18 a month to "average" customers' bills. In explaining the request, Vectren executives are quick to point to the equipment added to lessen pollution from the company's power plants. Last year the company spent $99 million to put a scrubber on a generation unit at the Alcoa power plant in Warrick County. Jerry Benkert, Vectren vice president and chief financial officer, said Vectren has outpaced other Indiana utilities in its spending on pollution control. That alone has driven the company's electricity bills up by 30 percent in the past several years, he said. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the company's generating units have been equipped to curtail releases of NOx and particulate matter.
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