PPL Makes Record Profits At Expense Of Customers

Let’s give our Pennsylvania energy regulators a big hand for making a corporation like PPL wealthier while sucking more money from the wallets of Pennsylvania residents. No doubt the state of Pennsylvania didn’t have a problem with the cost increase to the residents. Larger bills mean more taxes and fees paid to the state.

Pennsylvania residents who used PPL were notified of a 30 percent increase in their electric bill after the price caps were removed. PPL’s original complaint? They weren’t making enough money with the caps in place. Note that they weren’t losing money. They just weren’t making enough profit to become stinking rich.

That doesn’t seem to be a problem any longer.

Pennsylvania’s deregulated electric market continues to pay off big for Allentown energy company PPL Corp., which on Thursday reported third quarter profits of $248 million, or 51 cents per share, a tenfold increase from its performance in the same quarter a year earlier, as reported by the Morning Call and every other news agency.

That change helped boost earnings for PPL’s energy supply business, which can set electric rates based on market prices and has more energy to sell in the more profitable wholesale market.

More than one-third of PPL Electric Utilities’ 1.4 million Pennsylvania customers have shopped for an alternative electric provider. Those customers continue to pay PPL to deliver electricity to their homes and businesses, but they pay another company to generate the electricity they use.

However, even with former customers of PPL seeking out new electric companies offering to supply them with electricity, customers can still pay as much as 20 percent more than they were when the price caps were in place.

“The supply segment earnings clearly drove the improvement in our financial performance for the quarter and year to date,” PPL Chief Executive Officer James Miller said in a statement. “We remain on target to achieve significantly improved earnings in 2010 as compared with 2009.”

No shit. With the economy in the crapper and unemployment at record levels in Pennsylvania, it’s good to know that the executives and a few shareholders of PPL will be taking my money and putting it to use – making themselves even more money.

The company expects to soon close its acquisition of two Kentucky utilities for $7.6 billion, Miller said.

Louisville Gas and Electric Co. and Kentucky Utilities Co. provide electricity to 941,000 customers, mostly in Kentucky, but also in Virginia and Tennessee. Louisville Gas and Electric also provides natural gas to 321,000 customers in Kentucky.