Hot weather returns to Butler County
After a short break from scorching weather earlier this month, Butler County is once again in the midst of a heat wave which could test residents’ temperature tolerance, as well as their wallets.
Temperatures in the county reached a high of 90 degrees on Thursday, July 24, and the county was put under a “hazardous weather outlook” by the National Weather Service for heat index values topping 90 degrees.
The next three days of forecasts call for temperatures in the high-80s during the day and high chances of rain.
“Temperatures are a little bit warmer than they are on average this time of year, but that’s because we have high pressure in the area,” said Tim Cermak, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh. “Typically when you get high pressure in the summer, temperatures will be warmer than normal, so that’s really the big reason why it’s going to be so warm for the next five days.”
The upcoming high temperatures are arriving at a time when many Butler County residents are seeing unexpected jumps in their electricity bills due to a combination of high demand and low supply.
Earlier this month, customers of West Penn Power received an email notifying them to expect higher bills. This was due to an increase in the cost of energy from their supplier, PJM Interconnect, effective June 1.
“PJM doesn’t own power plants. But they are the regional transmission operator. They oversee all the different states,” said Todd Meyers, spokesman for FirstEnergy, the parent company of West Penn Power. “When their capacity prices rise, they have auctions.”
The “price to compare” is the rate at which an electricity provider purchases electricity from the supplier without markup. For West Penn Power customers, the “price to compare” for an average customer using 750 kWh per month is $0.10317 per kWh, a rise of nearly $0.01 over the previous period. This leads to an impact to the average customer of $8.36 per month.
The price to compare changes twice per year: on the first day of June and the first day of December.
West Penn Power is one of the two major power companies serving Butler County, with Central Electric Cooperative being the other.
To save money on electricity bills during the dog days of summer, West Penn Power recommends that residents only set their thermostats to the highest temperature they feel comfortable in, find ways to maximize airflow to prevent unnecessary air conditioner usage, draw the blinds to block out the sun, unplug unused electronics and use Energy Star-certified appliances.
Meyers also stresses that in Pennsylvania, residents are not bound to their electricity supplier and are free to shop around.
“Our customers are not captive to the price to compare,” Meyers said. “Pennsylvania is a choice state where customers can choose their electric supplier at any time. We encourage our customers to research the offers from retail suppliers in their area. … It doesn’t matter to us where our customers purchase their electricity. They remain our customers because we deliver it safely to their homes or businesses.”
