The Ameren Missouri rate increase that took effect this month is devastating small businesses here in Independence. 14.6% across the board plus they eliminated the first 1,000 kWh tier on Schedule SGS. A restaurant client's bill went from $1,850/month to $2,290/month. How are small businesses supposed to absorb these increases?
Ameren Missouri - 14.6% increase killing small businesses
Lloyd - I'm seeing the same thing in Columbia. The elimination of that first energy tier is really hitting small commercial accounts. What used to be billed at $0.089/kWh is now $0.124/kWh from the first kWh. That's a 39% increase on base energy consumption before you even factor in the overall rate increase.
John, exactly. The tier elimination was supposed to 'simplify' the rate structure but it's really just a way to extract more revenue from smaller customers who can't afford demand response systems or energy storage. I have three restaurant clients considering closing locations.
The sad part is that there aren't many options for small commercial customers to reduce these impacts. They don't qualify for the large customer programs and energy efficiency measures have limited payback when you're talking about 1,500-2,000 kWh/month operations.
This situation in Missouri highlights a broader trend where utilities are shifting costs to smaller commercial customers who have limited options to respond. As auditors, we need to be creative about finding savings opportunities - billing errors, power factor correction, time-of-use optimization - that become more valuable as base rates increase.