Electricity bills are expected to balloon in 2010 when the industry's pricing caps are removed.

So this might be a good time to learn what happens if you can't pay your electric bill, or what kind of quality providers are obliged to deliver.

"I found a lot of people don't know what consumer rights they already have," state Rep. John C. Bear of Lititz said Wednesday.

For example, if you can't pay your bill, a provider may not shut off your service during the winter months (Dec. 1 through March 31) unless certain criteria are met.

And consumers are allowed to have at least one payment plan with a service provider and another with the Public Utility Commission if they can't pay on time.

Bear said other states have published rights for utility consumers.

So when Bear started thinking about the potential fallout of the 2010 price hikes, which are expected to be up to 40 percent in this area, he wondered whether Pennsylvania had any consumer rights on the books. And he found them there in the Pennsylvania Code, but inconveniently scattered throughout the giant volume.

"You'd have to be an expert and know exactly what you're looking for and where to find it," Bear said.

So Bear announced this week the creation of a Pennsylvania Utility Consumer Bill of Rights, to consist of existing rights and possibly some new ones in a user-friendly format.

He plans to hold public meetings starting in Lancaster County in early September to familiarize residents with their current rights and take input about concerns that might warrant adding new rights to the books. Just as important, Bear said, he hopes to give residents strategies for finding the best price for electricity.

Eventually, Bear wants to expand this process to all utilities and post it in a format that's easily accessed.

"We haven't figured out how to market it yet … maybe we'll have every legislator put a link to it on their Web site," Bear said of the project, which he started in conjunction with the PUC and the Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate.

The caps, which froze electric rates at 1990s levels, were imposed on utilities as part of a deregulation plan designed to deliver lower bills in a competitive marketplace. Once those caps expire, utilities can bill customers for the true price of the power they buy.

Some utility officials caution that the expiration of their rate caps is far enough away — Jan. 1, 2010, for PPL; Jan. 1, 2011, for the other utilities — that no one knows what the price of electricity will be then.

Once the caps expire and the utilities can pass along the full wholesale price, those consumers getting the best prices now, because of the lowest caps, will be hardest hit.

With that in mind, Bear said, he wanted to help consumers take the hit a little easier — at the very least, they should be aware of what's coming. His meetings are designed also to get out the word that the hikes are coming.

"I want to make sure people are ready for this," he said. "This is an important issue, and I think we'll have a good response.

"I'm trying to start the dialogue now because I don't want people to go nuts when it happens. I'm trying to be proactive and come up with some solutions."

E-mail: slindt@lnpnews.com