Connecticut’s High Energy Rates

Throughout my tenure as your state representative, prioritizing affordability has been a central focus of my work. The recent Eversource rate increases are despicable.

In the past two years, consumers have faced consistent price hikes in local stores and at gas stations, and this latest surge in electric rates disproportionately impacts hardworking families in Connecticut, particularly those on fixed incomes.

Advocating for the creation of a task force to examine the state’s utility providers and assess the potential integration of alternative energy sources has been a consistent effort of mine during my time in Hartford. Beginning in 2020 and every year since, I have joined State Representative Doug Dubitsky in drafting legislation that would establish a task force to look at the possibility of breaking up the electrical distribution monopoly in Connecticut and examine the costs and benefits of bringing alternatives in electrical distribution to market. It also included looking at the possibility of municipal public utilities expanding their service area, specifically the costs of acquiring the electrical distribution infrastructure such as poles and wires. As a concept that I have introduced over the last several years, this was a missed opportunity in the legislature as the bill never advanced to the governor’s desk.

As lawmakers, it is our responsibility to demand immediate answers from both Eversource as well as from PURA as the regulatory body overseeing Eversource.

Decisions made by the state have a significant impact on your monthly bill, such as roughly four years of moratoriums on service shutoffs (citing COVID-19), which socialized the cost of unpaid bills to all ratepayers. It’s why Republicans insisted upon a provision that requires your electric bill to indicate the amount of your monthly cost that is attributable to these “public benefits” decisions.

The effect on ratepayers was among the reasons why I opposed the electric vehicle mandate sought by DEEP and Democrats, and why I opposed legislation requiring installation of electric heat pumps in thousands of homes. Both would have added significant load to our grid, require massive infrastructure upgrades, and ultimately impact the “public benefits” tally on bills and create homeowner system upgrade costs. Thankfully, those concepts stalled–for now.

But if approved, a draft PURA decision could allow utilities companies to recover from ratepayers the costs from another initiative tied to the state’s ambitious climate goals: a rebate program for residential electric vehicle charging stations.

We can’t continue to lurch from one crisis to the next. I want you to know that I’ll continue to push for strategies to stabilize, and ultimately lower, electric rates for homes and businesses. For now, if you’re using a third-party supplier for your electricity, you should compare whether your per kilowatt hour rate is more than the current standard offer rate from your utility company.

Other Republican proposals:

Provide autonomy for PURA. PURA is a division within the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). I fear that environmental (and ideological) goals of Governor Lamont’s DEEP, such banning the sales of new gas-powered vehicles, aren’t aligned with the interests of ratepayers. PURA should be removed from DEEP to provide it the greatest autonomy possible.

Unbundling the System Benefits Charge. Your bill includes charges that pay for hardship protection measures, low-income conservation programs as well as other public policies. We should consider funding these programs as part of the state budget appropriations process rather than including them on ratepayer bills.

Set reasonable caps on future power purchase agreements (PPAs). To stimulate growth of renewable energy projects, the state has required utility companies to purchase clean electricity (such as wind and solar) at rates that are sometimes substantially higher than others available on the market. Republicans proposed to improve this situation by capping future PPAs so that no contract can be for more than significantly over the wholesale electric market price.

Unfortunately, our ideas have been shot down by our majority party colleagues. Last year, our proposal to study how electric distribution companies could be reconstituted to bring more competition into the market was also rejected.

We can’t continue to lurch from one crisis to the next. I want you to know that I’ll continue to push for strategies to stabilize, and ultimately lower, electric rates for homes and businesses. For now, if you’re using a third-party supplier for your electricity, you should compare whether your per kilowatt hour rate is more than the current standard offer rate from your utility company.