Our electric bill will be higher than expected come January. The OPPD Board voted Thursday to make the third of three scheduled rate hikes a 4% increase instead of 3%.

The energy supplier is "going green" and asking us to follow.

With higher electric rates coming after the first of the year, questions now surround the cost of our home decorations.

"The LED's are a lot brighter, the colors are just a lot more vivid." Travis Freeman from Brite Ideas Decorating has a possible solution for home owners.

LED lighting is more expensive, but costs a lot less to use, one-tenth a normal string of lights and LED lights last a lot longer.

"It's about 50 to 70,000 hours, where the incandescent light you're going to get 3,000 hours, so these are gonna last you much longer than the incandescent lights," says Freeman.

That's in line with what OPPD would like all its customers to do. Three percent of the rate hike is going to capital improvement projects like the relicensing of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant.

The other 1% is going to sustainable sources of energy and energy savings.

The OPPD Board voted to sink money into turbines and solar power, and encourage customers to become more energy efficient.

"It's what we ought to be doing and back to the concept that we live on a planet that has finite resources," says OPPD's Mark Nichols. "We want to make the best use of these resources."

The rate increase will mean an extra $3.29 on the average home electric bill.

For those who will have trouble with any increase, there is the Energy Assistance Program to help with the bills.