Wisconsin’s Consumer Utility Board (CUB) most likely will challenge a dual rate increase that Xcel Energy filed last Wednesday with state regulators, seeking 13.3% and 6.5% rate hikes for its retail utility electricity and natural gas service in the state. The Minnesota-based utility is seeking to have the rate increase in place by Jan. 1 next year.

CUB Executive Director Charlie Higley told local news media that his group will review the utility’s filing and likely will contest the proposed rate hikes, which are estimated to mean an average monthly increase of $8.19 for power and nearly $5 for gas service.

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Public Service Commission told news media that no hearing dates have been set, but mostly likely the sessions will he held this fall with a PSC decision coming before the end of the year.

Higley called the proposed electricity increase “a little on the high side” and that the size of the natural gas rate increase “seems pretty typical from what we’ve seen from other utilities,” according to a report in the LaCrosse (WI) Tribune. “Our concern is: are the utilities managing the gas contracts as well as possible to try to minimize the price increases? They have little incentive in managing those costs because they typically can pass them on to consumers.”

Xcel officials defended the need for the rate hikes, noting that the company’s rates in Wisconsin are what they called the “lowest of any of the five major investor-owned utilities” in the state, and said they will remain the lowest for electricity and among the lowest from natural gas even with the proposed rate increases.

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