Tucson Electric customers face new service shutdown rules against business news



Tucson Electric Power employees work on a power pole on the east side. The utility is considering new rules for shutting down the service when customers fail to pay.



After TEP ended its voluntarily extended shutdown moratorium in February, it cut more than 2,200 customers in March for non-payment.

As Arizona enters another muggy summer, state regulators set the rules for Tucson Electric Power and other state-regulated utilities to ensure the heat isn’t fatal to residents.

The Arizona Corporation Commission approved preliminary guidelines for state-regulated utilities like Tucson Electric Power in mid-April that could limit service interruptions for non-payment due to extreme heat or cold and could endanger the health and safety of customers.

The new rules, which would replace a 2019 shutdown ban from June 1 to October 15, would allow affected utilities to use the current calendar period or instead suspend shutdown if the temperature exceeds 95 degrees.

For now, utilities must continue to adhere to the June through October shutdown moratorium that has protected thousands of Arizona interest payers from separating.

After TEP ended its voluntarily extended shutdown moratorium in February, it disconnected more than 2,200 customers for nonpayment in March, and Arizona Public Service Co. closed more than 10,000 late payment accounts in February and March, according to the ACC.

Make rules

With the draft rule, which has yet to go through a final regulatory process, TEP and other affected utilities can select one of two benchmarks that will interrupt the disconnection of customers: when the temperature exceeds 95 degrees or falls below 32 degrees or when the weather is deemed “Particularly harmful to health”; or annually from June 1st to October 15th.

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