Your July 8 story “Low-Income Households Get Squeezed on Utilities” describes the special challenges they face affording one of the necessities of life — utility service.
Pennsylvania’s electric and natural gas utilities are committed to assisting low-income customers in affording their energy bills through a variety of initiatives including reduced rates, weatherization and usage reduction measures, hardship fund grants, and energy conservation education and referrals. These utility-run programs, which are mostly paid for by other customers, provided reduced bills to over 440,000 low-income enrollees during 2016. If they make timely payments, customers enrolled in these programs are able to maintain service and can earn forgiveness of past due amounts.
In designing and implementing assistance programs, utilities also have a responsibility to be good stewards of the dollars contributed by other customers. The total statewide cost of these programs was nearly $400 million in 2016, almost twice the $213 million allocated to the state by the federal government via the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and several times the amount spent on energy assistance by neighboring states’ utility programs. On average, each utility customer pays more than $50 a year to fund assistance programs.
Utility-run, ratepayer-funded assistance programs are just one piece of a societal puzzle aimed at helping low-income families afford the cost of living in the commonwealth. For more information, customers should contact their utility. Links to our member companies can be found on our website, energypa.org.
TERRANCE J. FITZPATRICK
President & CEO
Energy Association of Pennsylvania
Harrisburg
First Published: July 23, 2018, 4:00 a.m.