You could soon pay an extra $25 a month for electricity if the Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s plans go accordingly. Tack that onto the company’s other recent proposed increase and you might start unscrewing light bulbs or unplugging appliances to save what you can.
Just after the new year, PSO asked the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to review and increase base rates to improve the power grid. If approved, the increase would hit your bill by July.
The possible price hike has Tulsans — including local leaders — raising their eyebrows.
“When I saw the dollar amount, in contrast to what the increases have been over the past several years and just how much more it was, I was floored,” said Tulsa City Councilor Laura Bellis.
This follows a separate request last September to add an extra $10 to your bills by 2029.
Both requests are under review by the commission, which is the state’s regulatory agency over public utilities. But many Tulsans are asking the same question…
Why are customers facing two price hikes at the same time?
It’s nuanced, says PSO spokesman Matt Rahn.
Rahn says the September request, which would increase the monthly base rate incrementally until it tops out around $10 in 2029, will help PSO purchase and build new power generation projects.
This new request, Rahn says, is “all encompassing.” It includes costs of providing electricity, labor, maintenance, materials and tree trimming, as well as vegetation management and smart technology on PSO lines and infrastructure.
“Generation capacity is certainly a part of that,” he said. “But we’re really kind of looking back at some of the investments that we’ve made over the last couple of years to serve existing customers.”
What about large customers like data centers?
In the January request to review and increase the base rate, PSO asked to solidify new terms and conditions for “large load customers.” Those include data centers, according to Alex Vaughan with the American Electric Power Service Corporation (AEPSC).
“The Company proposes to revise its Large Power and Light (LPL) tariff to manage financial risks from large load customers (notably data centers) and to recover costs of substantial new system investments anticipated to serve those loads,” Vaughan said in written testimony submitted with PSO’s rate increase request.
Rahn says any costs associated with supporting new data centers would be required upfront from those large load customers — not residential ones. But costs associated with serving all PSO customers are shared by everyone.
State Rep. Amanda Clinton, D-Tulsa, says the growing number of price increase requests from PSO has gotten “out of hand.”
While PSO says the latest request isn’t specifically related to the influx of local data center projects, residents have been vocal with concerns about the impact data centers will have on their utility bills.
Clinton led an interim study last fall on the impact of data center expansion in Oklahoma, and that’s when she became concerned about electricity too.
“This is not power that you and I are requesting as consumers. So I don’t think that you and I and other consumers, just regular people, should share in the cost of that,” she said.
Will there be more increases to my bill in the future?
“We’re focused on this proposal and this review at this time,” Rahn said. “I can’t really speculate on when we might file another case at this time.”
Rahn says the last base rate review was in 2023, which was unrelated to PSO’s September request to increase rates.
Have thoughts on the latest increase proposal? You can add public input for OCC here, referencing case number 2025-000075.
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