By Mike Boyer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnati Gas & Electric customers concerned about the utility's plan to end its 10-year-old electric-rate freeze can voice their opinions at a hearing today at 6 p.m. at Cincinnati City Hall.

A lawyer for the Public Utility Commission of Ohio will accept comments on the utility's proposals to end its rate freeze about a year ahead of schedule.

CG&E, a unit of Cinergy Corp., has offered two proposals to the commission to allow it to raise rates to recoup the costs of providing electricity in Southwest Ohio.

In recent testimony, Cinergy chairman James E. Rogers said the utility faces substantial challenges as the area's electricity provider of last resort. The utility spent an average of $65 million annually for pollution-control equipment over the last four years. It faces spending about $220 million annually for new environmental controls over the next four years, plus higher coal costs.

But the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, which has objected to CG&E's proposals, said either plan would mean higher rates for residential customers.

Specifically, the counsel says the utility's "rate stabilization plan'' would increase how much customers pay for generating power. Generation now accounts for more than half the monthly bill, but that would grow as much as 40 percent over four years starting in 2006.

The plan would also let CG&E collect an additional $100 million in "transition charges'' from customers from 2008 to 2010. That would cost a residential customer $4 to $5 more a month.

An alternative "Competitive Market Option'' proposed by CG&E would end consumer protections under Ohio's 4-year-old electric deregulation law, because a competitive resident market hasn't developed, the counsel says.

E-mail mboyer@enquirer.com