Austin Energy gives customers rate increase calculation tool

With electricity rates of Austin Energy customers expected to go up in a few months, the retail energy provider has developed a tool that will allow customers to calculate exactly what their electricity bills will be after the hike goes into effect, ABC affiliate KVUE News reports.

The resource gives residential customers the ability to enter their energy consumption – a level given to them on their electricity bill – then find out what their bill will be in the near future. The energy company said most of its customers won’t see a total increase of more than $49 for the summer, and during the eight months outside of summer, customers will likely only see a rise of between $2 and $5 per month.

However, business energy rates likely won’t benefit as much as residential customers, the media outlet stated.

“It's gonna hurt [when higher rates go into effect]. It's directly out of the bottom line,” said one business owner identified as Murphy. “You adjust prices, you look at your cost and eventually everything has to be passed down to the consumer, whether it's the individual consumers here at the store or it's my wholesale customers.”

After energy deregulation laws were implemented in 2002, Texas’ electric market became highly competitive, making customer service more important than ever.