Connecticut Attorney General Rails Against Proposed Eversource Rate Increase
Attorney General William Tong and other Connecticut leaders pushed back on Eversource’s latest rate hike filing with state utility regulators
The proposal seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in increases, including costs tied to storm damage recovery dating back several years
The request comes as state officials have worked to lower electric bills, and after Eversource faced criticism over its response to July 4 weekend storm outages
Connecticut leaders including Attorney General William Tong railed last week against Eversource’s recent filing with the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority seeking an 18% rate hike worth $727 million.
The proposal represents “another tone-deaf insult to Connecticut families facing surging energy costs in the midst of a sweltering summer,” Tong said. “We’re going to scrutinize every padded profit, every bonus and every expense to fight for every penny of savings for Connecticut families.”
Eversource’s latest proposal involves a $451 million rate increase, representing an 11% increase for residential bills worth $20 per month for the average customer.
However, it also includes storm-related costs over a six-year period from 2018 to 2023. The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority has preliminarily approved $933 million in storm costs, but the Attorney General’s office indicated it rejected an Eversource request for ratepayers to pay more than $300 million in interest costs.
Additional storm costs for 2024 and 2025, expected to cost at or above $275 million, were part of Eversource’s proposal as well.
Eversource drew heavy criticism during and after the Fourth of July weekend when powerful storms at the end of a heat wave caused significant damage, knocking out power to more than 150,000 residents.
The rate increases come just as efforts from state legislators have achieved progress in reducing electric bills in recent years. Prior to the rate requests, in April, an electric rate adjustment accepted by PURA that went into effect May 1 saved residential electric consumers between $30 and $34 per month. The public benefits charge on ratepayer bills also shifted for consumers recently, with reductions in the charge connected to nuclear energy contracts helping make the charge temporarily negative.
By Joe O’Leary