BELHAVEN — The Town of Belhaven is participating in an electric rate study to see how to best set the electric rates for the town during this fiscal year.

The Board of Aldermen approved the motion to participate in the study at a meeting on Aug. 10. The study with R.L. Willoughby at Power Services, Inc., costs around $10,000, but ElectriCities, the town’s electricity provider, agreed to pay nearly half of the cost, thus lowering the cost for the town to $5,700.

Julian Goff, a member on Belhaven’s Board of Aldermen, said the impetus for participating in the study is that the town is anticipating lower electric charges and wants to know how to respond appropriately.

Goff said many municipal power suppliers in the northeastern part of the state have a contract with Duke Energy for operating generation facilities. Recently, Duke Energy decided to buy back many of these facilities, thus partially reducing the debt of the municipalities.

He said this reduction in debt will lead to lower electric rates for the town, but the aldermen want to make sure the next electrical rate they set will be best for citizens in the years to come, not just this fiscal year.

“I was the one that kind of pushed doing something,” Goff said. “I didn’t want us to amateurishly adjust the rate without a little bit of professional help.”

The expected changes in Belhaven’s electric rates follow the board’s approved increases in water, sewage and garbage fees for the town in early July.

Goff said raising the water, sewage and garbage rates may have been done too soon, and the board probably should have waited until the conclusion of the electrical study — but that would have meant watching more debt accumulate from those systems, something the board did not want to do.

“It’s not a simple change,” he said. “The legislature has been tinkering with a lot of things.”

The study is ongoing at this point, as Power Services has begun to process data, Goff said.

“We kind of discuss with them what direction we want to go,” he said. “This should affect every person that has electric service (in Belhaven).”