The Power Drain

THE PINCH AT HOME Many Residents Stung By High Cost of Utilities

George Mann, an $18-an-hour grocery store clerk in Waldorf, found himself trembling last month as he wrote the check to pay his $644 electricity bill.

Still financially recovering from a $549 electricity bill in January, Mann said he noticed he was "shaking" as he paid the bill, full of anxiety about how he would find the money to pay other household expenses for the three-bedroom rambler where he lives with his wife and four children.

"When they deregulated the market, there was supposed to be competition and prices were supposed to go down," he said. "But why did the bills go in the opposite direction?"

That is a question being echoed in households across the region, particularly as heating bills rise in the coldest months of the year.

Electricity costs 78 percent more for Marylanders who get their power from Pepco than it did in 2001, and Virginians pay 14 percent more than they did at that time. Rates in the District have climbed 55 percent over the past six years.

According to Pepco, the average monthly bill in the District was $60.28 in 2004 and $87.45 in 2007. The average bill in Maryland was $90.45 in 2004 and $138.29 in 2007. In Virginia, bills have climbed from $98.85 to $103.90 in the same time period, according to Dominion.

As electricity prices have risen, so has the cost of gas heat. Its price has increased about 40 percent in the region, affected by many of the same factors that have caused electricity rates to go up, according to Washington Gas, which serves customers in Maryland, Virginia and the District. The average District resident paid $852 for gas in 2002 and $1,209 in 2007. Marylanders paid $789 annually in 2002 and $1,218 in 2007, and Virginians paid $851 in 2002 and $1,131 in 2007.

At least in part, the electricity increases came because the Washington region is now living in the aftermath of power company deregulation, a trend that swept the nation almost a decade ago. According to a national analysis by McCullough Research for municipally owned utilities, electricity rates in deregulated states rose almost 40 percent, compared with 19 percent in states that remained regulated.

Power companies attribute much of the increase to higher fuel costs and say that today's higher rates are compensating them for deferred profits during the years immediately after deregulation, when rates were capped. They say that it is unfair to criticize them for operating efficiently and producing a good return for investors. Consumer activists and nonprofit power companies say the for-profit power companies are gouging customers to make more money.

Whatever the cause, rising energy prices are squeezing all segments of society.

District resident Brenda Crawford, 51, lives with two grandsons, ages 7 and 9, and has a pension of $1,500 a month. She fell behind on her gas bill last spring, and Washington Gas turned off her heat in October. They told her it would cost $632 to reconnect it, but she didn't have the money. So, until last month, she and the children lived in an unheated home, washing themselves and doing their dishes in cold water and cooking on a hot plate. Electric space heaters and the fireplace took off some of the chill.

"It's terrible to be cold all the time," she said.