Typical Mat-Su electric bill drops about $5 a month starting Oct. 1

Matanuska Electric Association members will pay less for power starting Thursday, with a typical household using 623 kilowatt-hours a month paying about $5.32 less, a 3.1 percent drop from the third quarter. MEA announced the change in a member notice posted Wednesday.

The cut comes through MEA's Cost of Power Adjustment, which passes fuel and purchased-power costs to members without markup. It falls about 8.4 percent, from 10.195 cents to 9.34 cents per kilowatt-hour. MEA says the decrease is mainly due to lower costs for power it buys from other utilities and a smaller balancing-account adjustment, the running true-up between projected and actual power costs. The savings are partly offset by higher expected fuel and transportation costs during the colder months. MEA says fuel and purchased power make up about 37 percent of the average residential bill.

The decrease gives back part of a summer increase. On July 1, the adjustment rose from $0.07879 to $0.10195 per kilowatt-hour, about 29 percent, adding $14.53 to the typical monthly bill, a 9.26 percent increase, MEA said. Base rates did not change. Together, the two figures leave the typical bill about $9.21 a month higher than in the spring, a figure MEA has not published itself.

MEA says it has secured its own gas supply for winter but could still be asked to help the wider Southcentral Alaska system if needed. Rolling outages of 30 to 45 minutes would be a last resort, MEA says. The Regulatory Commission of Alaska, which approves the adjustment, has not yet published its filing.