Higher Electric Bills in 2022 for Oklahoma Residents

We'll be seeing higher electric bills in Oklahoma starting 2022.

Recently PSO (Public Service Company of Oklahoma) was granted permission to increase their average cost for customers' electric bills to help offset the expense of rising energy and fuel costs. The OCC (Oklahoma Corporation Commission) approved a proposal that would increase PSO customers' bills by $5.00 monthly.

You can get all the official details by clicking here. For PSO customers the new rate increase will happen no earlier than February of 2022 and again it's only an additional $5.00 per month. It's possible that sometime in 2022 the rate could increase again, but only slightly, around $2.00. The second increase would be to recover losses from the big winter ice storm back in February of this year. So the worst-case scenario for PSO customers will be a price increase of around $7.00 or so. Again, it could have been a lot worse.

If you remember back in February of this year the Sooner State saw some of the coldest and wettest weather we've ever seen. Due to the cold snap energy costs skyrocketed and power companies struggled to keep up with the heating demands. We saw rolling blackouts, some controlled others not so much. This left people wondering what the end cost would be and how it would affect our budgets.

Other energy companies/providers operating in the state are expected to do the same. While it's always difficult when price increases happen, it could have been a lot worse. We could have seen anywhere between $200.00 to $400.00 tacked onto our monthly bills. Right now power companies have agreed to stretch their financial losses and regain them over the next 20 to 30 years. Otherwise most Oklahomans, myself included, couldn't afford to heat or cool their homes. Oklahoma legislators stepped in to ensure this wouldn't happen.

Governor Kevin Stitt signed several bills earlier this year to keep power companies from raising their rates to unreasonable levels to recoup costs. Oklahoma Legislators also approved measures to provide low-interest loans to power companies to assist in continued operation and help with immediate financial loss, as well as to protect customers. State lawmakers and power companies are working together now to resolve this.