America’s priciest big-city electric rates will jump another 4 to 6 percent next year if a deal reached yesterday between Con Ed and state and city officials is approved.

Consumers will feel the jolt next May under the three-year compromise proposal filed with the state Public Service Commission, which will make a final decision in 2010.

Two ways to inflict even more power-bill pain on New Yorkers were put before the PSC yesterday.

One proposal would raise rates for residential customers by 4.3 percent in April 2010, and the same percentage increase in each of April 2011 and April 2012.

Under that plan, a typical residential customer paying $83.60 per month would pay $87.23 in April 2010, $90.98 in April 2011, and $94.89 in April 2012. Businesses would pay a slightly smaller yearly percentage increase, of about 3.3 percent.

The second proposal would boost rates by 5.7 percent in April 2010, 2.7 percent in April 2011 and 2.4 percent in April 2012.

That would require a typical residential customer paying $83.60 per month to fork over $88.37 in April 2010, $90.75 in April 2011, and $92.93 in April 2012. As in the first proposal, businesses would pay a slightly smaller percentage increase next year of 4.2 percent; business data for 2011 and 2012 were not available yesterday.

Those numbers are only estimates. Con Ed’s prices vary depending on what it pays generating companies, whose prices fluctuate with the cost of natural gas and oil. The state only sets the price Con Ed charges to deliver electricity to homes and businesses.

Prices also vary depending on how much electricity consumers use. Typically, people who use less power pay a bit more per kilowatt hour than those who use more.

Also, hidden state and local taxes are a growing part of Con Ed bills — they amount to more than 25 percent of what customers pay, the company says. State or city tax boosts could pry even more money from Con Ed customers’ pockets.

The compromise proposal now before the PSC gives Con Ed something it wanted badly — a three-year plan, which assures its investors of stable income and relieves its lawyers and rate experts the burden of annual, lawsuit-like PSC reviews it’s endured in recent years.

(Source: NY Post)