Nebraska City Utilities Manager Jeff Kohrs said customers could be seeing a two-fold impact on bills this month due to cold weather here and energy prices elsewhere in the power pool.

One factor in potential sticker shock for customers seeing their electrical bills this month is customers consuming more energy as temperatures dropped of Valentine’s Day. Nebraska City had no temperature above 15 degrees for two weeks and experienced temperatures above minus 14 for most of the day on Feb. 16.

The Nemaha County Herald reported a daily record low temperature of minus 32 degrees at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16.

Weather observer Daryl Obermeyer told the newspaper that the previous record was set in 1905.

On Feb. 15, Nebraska City Utilities asked customers to conserve energy  by lowering thermostats by 3 degrees.

Kohrs said if customers did not conserve energy, their usage would have gone up and their bills will be higher.

Kohrs did not expect to see a jump in the natural gas bills. He said the utility set its natural gas pricing at the first of the month and has storage of natural gas that was purchased prior to the energy emergency alert.

Nebraska City Utilities used diesel fuel in storage to generate electricity on three different occasions during the cold snap.

The utility was never notified that is was scheduled for rolling blackouts, although Kohrs said he suspects the city was on the list. He said black out were ordered for the utilities’ electrical suppliers.

The Nebraska City City Council also approved a gradual 3 percent electrical rate increase effective in October.

The new rates for residential customers within the city are divided between the first 800 kilowatt hours and then the balance.  For the first 800 kilowatt hours, customers pay .09. That will rise to the .10 next year.

For the balance, customers pay .07.

Customers also pay a monthly charge of $18 that will rise to $20 by next October.

Kohrs said the new rates are based on an electric rate study conducted last summer. He said the rates focus more on a monthly fixed customer charge and have less emphasis on consumption.

He said the new rates replace the “production cost adjustment” that was calculated each month based on consumption with a  provision that the “production cost adjustment” can be applied to bills, if there was a substantial increase or decrease in the cost of power or other emergencies.

Kohrs said a 10 percent deviation in electric power from the city’s providers may allow for the production cost adjustment.

The city's ordinance in October set a 5 percent fee on late utility bills.