News Release

HU Customers to Pay Less for Power Beginning Today

December 29, 2008

Huntsville Utilities customers will see a decrease in their power bills when the TVA rate reduction goes into effect today.

The Tennessee Valley Authority Board voted in November for a reduction in wholesale power rates that are charged to the distributors of TVA power. TVA supplies all of the power distributed by Huntsville Utilities. HU is passing the TVA rate reduction directly to customers.

On average HU residential customers will see a savings of just over $7.00 each month. Over the past five years, the average residential monthly electric usage was 1467-kilowatt hours. Under the current rates, a customer’s bill would be $138.64. With the new rates, a customer’s bill would be $131.23.

The new rates for HU customers will be $0.08516 for the first 1400 kilowatt hours used and $0.09317 for all kilowatt hour usage over 1400 kWh. This represents a 5.6% decrease in the rates.

The rate reduction will take effect today when the January billing cycle for Huntsville Utilities. For a number of customers, part of their December power usage will be billed at the new lower rate.

The rate decrease follows one of the largest rate increases in TVA’s history. This summer TVA announced its largest rate increase in 35 years, which boosted electric bills for HU customers an average of over $20 a month.

For every dollar a HU customer pays for electricity, approximately 14 cents stays with HU to maintain and operate the system and 86 cents goes to TVA for purchased power.

Huntsville Utilities is a Publicly-Owned, Not-for-Profit utility serving over 159,000 customers in Huntsville, Madison County and northern Marshall County.