PPL Corporation (PPL 1.50%) celebrated a regulatory win today as the United Kingdom gave the approval for PPL to speed up its price hikes.
Compliments of the Brit's regulatory body, PPL Corporation's four U.K. utilities are now cleared to charge customers at a rate of 6.4% the real cost of equity starting April 1, 2015. For other utilities without the early go-ahead, they'll have to keep rates at 6%.
While PPL's future earnings estimates remain unchanged, the company expects extra revenue equivalent to 2.5% of total annual spending -- around $35 million.
"The well-justified business plans we submitted in July 2013 reflect the excellence in reliability, cost and customer satisfaction that our U.K. team has consistently delivered," said PPL Corporation Global President Rick Klingensmith in a statement today. "We appreciate Ofgem's [U.K. regulatory body] recognition of the high quality in our business plans, and our ability to deliver value to customers."
The four approved subsidiaries carry a collective customer base of 7.8 million, around 12% of the country's total population.
