EVERSOURCE TO TRY AGAIN FOR RATE INCREASE
Seven months after state utility regulators suspended a rate hike granted to Eversource Energy, the utility company is back for another attempt to get the money.
Eversource officials filed their latest rate hike request with Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority late Monday afternoon. It represents an attempt to revisit a rate increase Public Utilities Regulatory Authority granted last summer, before suspending amid public outcry over the size of increases to customer electric bills in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The filing contains two options for the Eversource to recover the costs from last year’s proposed rate increase.
One calls for a single rate increase, which would take effect May 1, that would increase what the average customer pays by $12.55 cents per month or 8.2 percent to $166. The average Eversource residential use 700 kilowatt hours per month.
The second plan calls for a two-phased increase that would spread Eversource’s proposed recovery of the money it was owed from last year’s rate hike over a three-year period. The increases would take effect on May 1 and Oct. 1, with first hike being $1.06 and the second one raising the bill by $5 or 3.24 percent to $159 per month.
Doug Horton, Eversource’s vice president in charge of rates, said the increase called in the second option is smaller for two reasons.
“One reason is that we are seeking to recover our costs over a longer period of time, which reduces the size of the increase,” Horton said. “We are sympathetic to the challenges our customers face.”
The other reason why the size of the increase is smaller with the second option is related to a deal state officials reached with the owner of the Millstone nuclear power plant in 2019.
Dominion Energy raised the possibility that Waterfordbased Millstone might have to close if a deal was not reached. Before PURA suspended Eversource’s rate hike in late July 2020, the utility’s customers began paying nearly twice as much as before the special deal was put in place for the power generated by Millstone.
Horton said the second option reflects an expectation “that we expect the cost of Millstone will be cheaper this year.”
Rich Sobolewski, Connecticut’s acting Consumer Counsel, was not immediately available for comment on Eversource’s rate filing.
Horton said Eversource’s latest filing does not reflect costs the company incurred making repairs to its distribution network following Tropical Storm Isaias, which hit the state at last summer.
Jim Judge, the company’s CEO, told energy industry analysts recently Eversource officials will seek to recover the $230 million the utility incurred as a result of the storm. Nearly 80 percent of those costs are attributed to bringing in mutual aid crews, hiring independent contractors, vegetation management crews and environmental cleanup.
Isaias was one of the largest power outage events in the state's modern history. Thousands of residents remained without power more than a week after the storm hit and countless roads were blocked by damaged trees and power lines.