Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E) is a utilities company based in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. A subsidiary of

PPL Corporation PPL Corporation is an energy company headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The company is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. History Pennsylvania Power & Light was founded in 1 ...

through the

LG&E and KU Energy LG&E and KU Energy is a subsidiary of PPL Corporation, based in Louisville, Kentucky. It is composed of the following companies: *Louisville Gas & Electric Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E) is a utilities company based in Louisville, Kentucky. A sub ...

subsidiary, LG&E serves over 429,000 electric and over 333,000 natural gas customers, covers an area of 700 square miles (1800 km²), and has a total regulated electric generation capacity of 2,760

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...

. The President is John R. Crockett III.

History

LG&E was formed in 1838 as Louisville Gas and Water but dropped its plans to provide water utilities in 1842 changing its name simply to Louisville Gas. LG&E was originally formed by investors with the intention of providing gas-fired street lighting which had been mandated in order to help prevent crime. * In 1890 LG&E (Louisville Gas at this point) amended its charter to buy stock in electric companies and acquired Louisville Electric light. * In 1913, Louisville Gas, Louisville Lighting, and Kentucky Heating merged to form Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E). * In 1979, the construction of Trimble Country electric generation station started. * In 1990, LG&E reorganized itself as a holding company LG&E Energy Corporation. * In 1998, LG&E Energy merged with the other major electric utility in Kentucky,

Kentucky Utilities Kentucky Utilities (KU) is based in Lexington, Kentucky, and provides electricity to 77 counties in Kentucky. KU also serves five counties in Virginia under the name Old Dominion Power.

. * In 2000, LG&E Energy was bought by British

utility company A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...

Powergen. In 2002, Powergen was bought by the German company E.ON. * In 2003, LG&E Energy changed its name to E.ON US. Finally, in 2010, E.ON US was bought by

. PPL changed the name of the company to LG&E and KU Energy LLC. Since 2011, the company's bills are available to be paid at

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

Generation

The current electric generating stations serving the region include two

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

-fired plants (Trimble County Generating Station and Mill Creek Station), one

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bun ...

combustion turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directio ...

, one

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

plant ( Ohio Falls Station), two

facilities (Muldraugh and Magnolia Compressor Stations) and one natural gas combined cycle facility ( Cane Run Station).

Acquisition by PPL Corporation

PPL and E.ON announced on April 28, 2010, a definitive agreement under which PPL will acquire E.ON US for $7.625 billion. The sale was closed on November 1, 2010.

Process for Calculating Customer Gas Billing

Under its contract with the

Kentucky Public Service Commission The Kentucky Public Service Commission is the public utilities commission for the State of Kentucky. The commission is a quasi-judicial regulatory tribunal. It regulates the intrastate rates and services of investor-owned electric, natural gas, te ...

(PSC), LG&E estimates two out of every three months' of each customer's gas consumption. This allows the publicly-traded company to ensure it hits projected revenue estimates reported quarterly to its stockholders regardless of actual customer consumption. Under its PSC contract, the company is only required to attempt one actual, manual read of each customer's gas meter per quarter, and is only required to actually complete a manual read once per every six months. Under the company's stated theory, this means that although the customer has been billed based on estimates and anticipated revenue for 5 months, the account billed will true-up on the 6th month when a manual read is completed. The subsequent quarter can then begin with several months of estimated reads that allow the company to report achievement of its projected revenue to stockholders. If the cumulative total of manual reads equals revenue less than projected to stockholders, LG&E is permitted to spread the difference across its customers' accounts.

Consumer Reviews and Ratings

As of March 2023, LG&E receives a 1.6 star rating out of 5 on Google Reviews, with the majority of reviews mentioning poor customer service and significant, unexplained increases in bills for services. Similarly, LG&E has a cumulative rating of 1.0 stars out of 5 on Yelp as of March 2023 and a BBB consumer rating of 1.5 stars out of 5.

References

External links

LG&E and KU Energy Home Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Louisville Gas and Electric Energy companies established in 1838 Infrastructure in Louisville, Kentucky Electric power companies of the United States Companies based in Louisville, Kentucky Hydroelectric power companies of the United States 1838 establishments in Kentucky American companies established in 1838 E.ON