BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) approved two significant measures concerning Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) today, following proposals from North Louisiana PSC member Foster Campbell, D-Bossier City.
Campbell, whose PSC District 5 encompasses the majority of SWEPCO’s 12-parish territory, successfully advocated for an immediate $23 million refund to customers. This refund addresses an accounting error made by the electric utility during 2022 and 2023.
In addition to the refund, Campbell secured approval for a comprehensive service-quality investigation of SWEPCO due to frequent outages in the region.
“We have had a lot of outages in Northwest Louisiana,” Campbell said. “We need to look at SWEPCO to see if service can be improved.” He noted that one area near Shreveport experienced 10 outages this year alone.
The $23 million accounting error was identified during a PSC review of SWEPCO’s billing for the years 2022 and 2023. Campbell proposed that the refund be applied as credits to customer bills during the peak summer months of July, August, and September.
“Those are the hottest months with the highest bills,” he explained.
For the average SWEPCO residential customer using 1,250 kilowatt-hours per month, the credit will amount to $21 per month, totaling $63 for the three-month period. Actual bill credits will vary based on individual customer usage.