Citing rising costs and the need to strengthen Northwest Florida’s power system, Gulf Power Company has asked the Florida Public Service Commission to increase electricity rates.

The request is the company’s first base rate request in 10 years and would increase the total bill for a residential customer buying 1,000 kilowatt-hours by $12.15 per month — from $122.67 to $134.82. Gulf Power has asked the PSC to implement a portion of the increase ($4.49) in September, pending a final decision on the request in early 2012.

“Even though we have had increases to cover rising fuel and required environmental costs, we have not had an increase to cover the day-to-day cost of doing business for almost a decade,” Gulf Power spokesperson Sandy Sims said. “Since then costs have increased signficantly as we’ve built new power lines and substations. At the same time we’ve taken steps to strengthen and upgrade our electrical system that has been shaken by major hurricanes.”

Sims said Gulf Power has invested significantly in new infrastructure since the last such request in 2001, building more than 850 miles of new power lines and nine new substations and serving an additional 50,000 customers.

“The costs of maintaining our local customer service offices, our line crew centers, our fleet of bucket trucks and other day-to-day operations have also all increased since 2001,” Sims said. “Material and equipment costs have gone up significantly.”

Sims said that since the last base rate increase request several items commonly used in the business have seen significant cost increases. For example, the cost of copper wire has increased more than 250 percent, transformers 90 percent and the cost of diesel fuel for bucket trucks has jumped more than 300 percent. 

“We wouldn’t be asking for a price adjustment unless it was absolutely necessary,” said Sims. “Maintaining reliable service is at the core of our business. Over the past 10 years we have had to upgrade our grid with stronger poles, new computerized monitoring and control technology, smart meters and new switching equipment to meet the growth in demand and to avoid outages. Like any other business, at some point our prices have to be adjusted as the cost of doing business increases. ”

To help customers cope with rising costs, Sims said Gulf Power has recently introduced more than 20 different programs and incentives designed to help improve the energy efficiency of its customers’ homes and businesses. For more information on these programs, including a free Energy Check-Up, customers can go to gulfpower.com.

Gulf Power Company is an investor-owned electric utility with all of its common stock owned by Atlanta-based Southern Company. Gulf Power serves more than 430,000 customers in eight counties throughout Northwest Florida. The company’s mission is to safely deliver affordable, reliable and environmentally responsible energy to very satisfied customers in strong communities. Visit online at GulfPower.com or on the company’s Facebook page, “Gulf Power Company.”