The utilities both say they need to charge higher rates because of a spike in the price of natural gas.
Both of Connecticut’s electric utility companies want to raise rates sharply in January.
United Illuminating says it needs to increase the generation portion of customers’ bills by 54 percent. That would take the average customer’s generation costs from $60.00 per month to over $90.00 per month.
Connecticut Light and Power says it wants to raise customers electricity rates by more than 25 percent, and that hike will come on top of whatever increase is allowed by regulators to CL&P’s distribution fees. The changes could see the average customer paying $18.00 per month more just for electricity, while fixed fees will add another $10.00.
The utilities both say they need to charge higher rates because of a spike in the price of natural gas.
Katie Scharf Dykes, who is the Deputy Commissioner for Energy at the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection told WNPR’s Where We Live that New England as a whole has structural problems in getting natural gas where it needs to be. “The demand for gas on the electric side now is so high that there’s no excess in the winter months,” she said.
State regulators are considering CL&P's request for a big hike in fixed distribution fees. It's been particularly controversial because it can't be offset by customers saving electricity.
Electricity generating companies in New England invested heavily in installing natural gas-fired plants in recent years because of the falling price of the fuel, but distribution infrastructure hasn’t kept pace, which means that in cold snaps there’s a bottleneck which restricts gas distribution. “We saw just this past winter, 11,000 megawatts of gas generation — only 3,000 megawatts of it could get gas and run,” said Dykes. “That means those same gas plants were running on oil or they were running on coal, and these are more expensive, dirtier fossil fuels. This is taking us backwards, essentially, where we’re paying higher costs, and we’re seeing greater emissions.”
Meanwhile, state regulators are still considering a rate case in which CL&P has asked for a big hike in the fixed fees that pay for distribution of electricity. It’s been particularly controversial because it can’t be offset by customers saving electricity.
John Harrity, president of the Connecticut State Council of Machinists, said CL&P doesn’t deserve the increase. "They’ve been cutting staff, they’ve been closing maintenance garages, they haven’t been expanding service that would require a higher service fee,” he said.
Unions and faith groups have objected strenuously to the fixed fee increase, because it hits low-income families and seniors the hardest. “The fixed service fee also makes it more difficult to do the financing on solar projects and other things that depend on being able to cut the amount of electricity that you use,” said Harrity. “Having that big fixed rate in the middle of the bill just de-incentivizes everything that we’re trying to do.”
CL&P’s request to hike the fixed fees has been opposed by Connecticut’s consumer counsel and an array of other top state officials. The Public Utility Regulatory Authority is expected to make a determination by the end of this year.
