LARNED — Unlike many municipalities across the state and nation, the City of Larned will receive a credit to its February energy bill. 

The welcomed news comes in the wake of the February polar vortex that locked itself over western Canada and the central, south central and western United States creating a record-setting energy crisis.

Larned’s electric credit comes to the tune of $160,000 from Midwest Energy, the city’s electric provider. City manager Bradley Eilts said the city-owned power plant produced more electricity than the city consumed. “The net result is that instead of receiving a huge bill for energy costs during the cold snap, Larned customers are going to get a sizeable credit,” said Eilts. “Because of the sizeable credit, we’re passing that on to our customers in our next billing cycle (April for February usage).” 

Eilts credits the Larned City Council when its members voted to freeze the fuel cost adjustment based on the anticipated sharp increase in energy rates. “This is intended to help our customers,” said Eilts. “By ordinance, the savings can be directly passed to our customers related to actual usage.” 

He added that another benefit of the energy credit is that it will expedite the savings so that customers will be able to pay toward natural gas, plumbing bills or other needs related or unrelated to the recent extreme cold.

In addition to residential, Eilts said the significant savings will also benefit other customer classifications, such as small commercial, which is more difficult to determine because of demand (capacity) charges. “We will be further discussing this type of situation at a future city council meeting,” said Eilts.