The Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative plans rate increases in Virginia and West Virginia, citing the continually rising cost of doing business.
The New Castle-based cooperative provides electric service to approximately 7,400 members in the Virginia counties of Alleghany, Botetourt, Craig, Giles, Montgomery and Roanoke, as well as Monroe County, West Virginia.
In Virginia, it seeks regulatory approval to raise the monthly bill of an average residential member by $7.31, or 3.7%, effective May 1, according to an application recently filed with the Virginia State Corporation Commission.
The monthly bill of an average Virginia residential member using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity would go from about $198 to about $206.
In West Virginia, it plans to raise the average residential customer’s monthly bill by $7.91, or 6.8%, also effective May 1, according to a filing with the West Virginia Public Service Commission.
That would increase the average residential monthly bill from about $116 to about $124. The cooperative has 495 customers in Monroe County, West Virginia.
“Despite its efforts to control costs, CBEC has determined that it needs additional revenue to continue to invest in its system, cover rising power and other operating costs, meet its financial obligations, and provide the highest levels of reliable customer service,” the cooperative told the Virginia SCC.
The Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative’s proposals would raise its annual revenue in Virginia by approximately $563,000, or 3.5%, and in West Virginia by about $49,000, or 6.9%.
In 2024, Virginia regulators approved an increase that raised the monthly bill of an average Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative residential member by $6.70, or 3.6%.
In its application then, the cooperative cited the same factors behind rising costs.
That same year, the cooperative raised the monthly bill of an average West Virginia residential member by $17.46, or 17.2%.
More than 90% of the cooperative’s customers are residential, and they account for about 85% of the organization’s power load, according to the cooperative’s website.
The cooperative joins other Virginia utilities in seeking higher rates recently.
Last year, regulators approved a two-part Dominion Energy rate increase to raise the average residential monthly bill by $13.60 over two years. The first part took effect Jan. 1, raising the average residential bill by $11.24.
[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
In a separate case concluded early last year, Old Dominion Power, which serves five Southwest Virginia counties, was allowed to raise its average residential customer’s monthly bill by $17.63.
Appalachian Power, which has about 540,000 customers in Western Virginia, is expected to file its next biennial rate case in May. In its last Virginia rate review case in 2024, regulators allowed an increase to the average residential customer’s monthly bill of $1.39, less than the approximately $10 increase that the utility had asked for.