Georgetown to see spike in energy bill beginning February
GEORGETOWN, Texas (FOX 7 Austin) - Georgetown, the city known for using 100% renewable energy, will soon be seeing an increase in their electric bills. Those who live there are not too happy about having to pay more.
Higher bill costs come with higher stress. “That seems like a little bit drastic increase to me,” said Kim Hassinger who lives in Georgetown. Recently the City of Georgetown told residents like Hassinger their energy bills will begin seeing an increase beginning February.
“That's not good news for me, I’m single working commission type job so it's hard to budget my money with prices going up that's a strain on my budget,” said Hassinger.
Our crews stopped by city hall to ask why the increase. “That's being used to replenish our fund to purchase power,” said Keith Hutchinson the Georgetown communications manager.
According Keith Hutchinson, the city bought more energy than was needed for the population. “We are taking other steps to correct the fund balance but this is putting into place making sure we have the revenue to cover our power costs for the rest of the year,” said Hutchinson.
When the city was contracting power they were trying to take population growth into account.
Hutchinson said this has nothing to do with the city using 100% renewable energy.
“It's really not the source of the energy that's the issue,” said Hutchinson.
For now, the city says they expect this increase to be in place until September. “It doesn't seem right that the citizens and the taxes payers take on that burden when it's their mistake,” said Hassinger.
Some of the options the city is looking into for the future is reducing the energy Georgetown is obligated to purchase or selling a portion of the energy to a third-party.