CITIZENS ELECTRIC SEES FEW CHANGES (POWER PLAY: DEREGULATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY) (LAST IN A SERIES)

It may be business as usual at Citizens Electric Corp., even if deregulation occurs in the utility industry.

The utility serves about 22,000 customers in Ste. Genevieve, Perry, and parts of Cape Girardeau and St. Francois counties.

The utility doesn't own a power plant; Citizens Electric buys its power from Union Electric and resells it to its customers.

Mike Kays is manager of finance and administration for Citizens Electric, headquartered in Ste. Genevieve.

He said his company could live in a deregulated market because it doesn't have the expense of paying for a costly power plant.

Kays said Citizens Electric has a long-term contract with UE that extends to the year 2000.

Long-term contracts are vital in the power business, he said. As a result, utility companies can't afford to jump from one supplier to another at the spur of the moment.

Kays said that even if the industry is deregulated at the retail level, the average customer won't see immediate benefits.

The immediate benefit would be to large industrial users, he said. "They would be able to buy large blocks of power. A residential customer is not going to have that potential," he said.

Kays said Citizens Electric operates much like a cooperative: It secures low-cost, federal loans like cooperatives. Its customers receive stock certificates rather than membership certificates.

"Our philosophy is we provide the service at cost. We're not interested in making any money," he said.

Under deregulation, power brokers could sell electricity to retail customers.

But Kays said that power probably will be delivered over the local utilities' existing lines. Local utility companies probably would still do all the billing.

Local utilities will have to charge fees to cover the cost of distributing power and maintaining the electric lines, transformers and other equipment, he said.

Kays said deregulation could lead to competition from power brokers. But, he said, the question remains whether such brokers would offer reliable power.