GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Consumers Energy says there’s one main reason many customers saw high electric bills in the most recent billing cycle: the weather.
Several viewers reached out to 24 Hour News 8 wondering why their Consumers bills were much higher than expected — nearly double the usual figure, in some cases. Among those viewers was Haley Haynes.
“I’ve noticed that for this billing cycle, we have $129 in energy use,” she showed 24 Hour News 8 Monday. “However, about this time last year, our bill was $79.”
Consumers says the explanation is simple:
“For the month of December, the December of 2017 has been the coldest it’s been in a decade,” Consumers spokesman Roger Morgenstern said. “January has been colder than any other January since 2013 and 2014.”
He said that since it’s colder, it’s taking more energy to keep homes warm.
“We are looking at a cold pattern right now. I look at the next two weeks, we’re not going to have many days above freezing, so unfortunately those furnaces are going to keep running hard,” he added.
The high cost had Haynes scrutinizing her bill more closely, and she noticed something she hadn’t before.
“When you get a bill, you see what the total is and you pay it,” she said. “I really started to look into and I noticed there is something called distribution cost.”