El Paso Electric rate increase approved; here's how much more you'll pay
Editor's Note: This story was updated with comments and information from the city of El Paso and El Paso Electric.
El Paso Electric's rate increase has been approved by Texas regulators, about a year after the regulatory review process began and after a contested case hearing.
El Paso city officials estimate the increase will be about $13.71 per month, up about 14%, for the average Texas residential customer. That's $8.68 below the average increase of $22.39 per month, or a 23% increase, requested by El Paso Electric when it filed its request with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) in January 2025.
EPE officials did not provide details on the rate increase approved by PUCT commissioners Friday, Feb. 20, but Kelly Tomblin, El Paso Electric chief executive officer, was not happy that EPE did not get its full request.
City officials, in a statement, said the exact amount of the rate increase will be known after the PUCT staff issues details of the final rate order.
The average Texas residential customer's bill currently ranges from $72 per month in winter to $140 per month in hot-weather months, according to El Paso Electric data.
The city of El Paso, several companies and others opposed the company's proposed rate increase.
“We did not get everything we advocated for, but this decision secured key saving for our residents and cuts back major parts of El Paso Electric’s request,” City Attorney Karla Nieman said in a statement.
EPE's New Mexico customers are not part of the Texas rate increase.
The rate increase, which will be retroactive to July 1, 2025, comes on the heels of large rate increases recently approved for El Paso Water and Texas Gas Service. When the increase will hit customers' bills is not yet known, an EPE spokesperson said.
El Paso Water's average residential rate is increasing by 12.2%, or $10 per month, starting March 1. Texas Gas rates are increasing by 10% for small residential customers, or $3.64 per month, and by 19% for large residential customers, or $11.30 per month. The city of El Paso has asked the Texas Railroad Commission for a rehearing on the rate increase.
Kelly Tomblin, El Paso Electric chief executive officer, talks about a proposed increase in electric rates for Texas customers at a Jan. 27, 2025 news conference.
Tomblin, EPE's CEO, in a statement issued several hours after the PUCT vote, said the proposed rates approved by the commission “do not fully cover the cost of building, operating and maintaining” the utility’s electric system.
"While we respect the Commission’s decision, we firmly stand by our original filing that sought to recover approximately $1.55 billion in infrastructure investments that we have spent (over several years) to bolster reliability and growth in our Texas service area,” Tomblin said.
Tomblin did not provide details on how much EPE rates would increase under the PUCT's action.
After a contested case hearing in August before the PUCT, administrative law judges issued a Proposal for Decision in the EPE rate case in December, which was only slightly altered since then.
The decision recommended reducing EPE's base-rate revenue request by almost $60 million. However, that decision does not provide details on the new rates for various customer classifications under the proposed decision.
The Texas Public Utility Commission of Texas meeting on Feb. 20 in Austin, at which its four commissioners approved rate increases for El Paso Electric's customers. From left to right, Morgan Johnson, Courtney Hjaltman, Chairman Thomas Gleeson, and Kathleen Jackson.
Several items in the Proposal for Decision were rejected and modified, mostly in favor of EPE, by the four PUCT commissioners before they unanimously approved the proposed decision at its Friday meeting in Austin.
One change to the proposed decision is that the company's investment rate of return is set at 9.4%, rather than the requested 10.7%.
Tomblin was particularly unhappy with the PUCT’s decision on the rate of return, known as the rate of equity, or ROE.
“We may find it challenging to support our Texas region's growth when the ROE remains lower than many other utilities in the state,” Tomblin said in her statement.
One of the items changed by the commissioners in the proposed decision was to allow EPE to increase its residential customer charge from $9.25 per month to $13.71 per month, an increase of $4.46 per month. The PUCT staff had agreed with EPE's proposal to raise the monthly charge, but the administrative law judges concluded that the charge should not be increased.
A portion of the Newman power plant, El Paso Electric's largest power plant, along Stan Roberts Avenue in far Northeast El Paso, as seen Feb. 29, 2024. El Paso Electric in December 2023 added a new generator to the plant at a cost of $217.3 million, according to the Proposal for Decision in EPE's 2025 rate case.
Jacob Reyes, an EPE spokesperson, said in an email earlier this week that EPE does "not conduct analysis on proposed (rate) orders until we receive a final order from the (PUCT) commissioners. It would take about a week for our rates department to run those calculations once we have a final order."
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 915-546-6421; [email protected]; @vickolenc on X, and @vkolenc.bsky.social on Bluesky.
