Eversource CEO stepping down
Eight months following sharp criticism on Eversource Energy’s response times after Tropical Storm Isaias sent trees crashing through power lines, the company is replacing its CEO with the man who has led its efforts to generate electricity from offshore wind farms.
Eversource announced Wednesday afternoon that it is promoting Joe Nolan to
CEO as the replacement for Jim Judge, who will remain executive chairman of the board of directors. The utility had given no previous indication that a switch was in the works.
Nolan will become CEO on May 5.
Judge testified on multiple occasions to Connecticut lawmakers and regulators, after customers voiced anger last August over power outages lasting several days. Bills were already spiking as a result of a summer heat wave that hit, with large numbers of people staying home during the day as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing up their electric use running air conditioners.
While defending the utility’s Isaias response, Judge concurred that Eversource came up short in some areas, including maintaining lines of communication with customers and municipal leaders. At one point, Judge suggested he expected to see his compensation reduced over the furor. Last month, Eversource estimated Judge’s 2020 compensation at $14.6 million — about $5.3 million
less than he made the previous year.
In response, the Connecticut General Assembly pushed through a “take back our grid” law, which allows the Connecticut Public Utilities Authority to impose stiffer penalties if outage response is deemed lacking. PURA issued a draft version of its own analysis last month.
In February, Judge reiterated to investment analysts that Eversource would seek to recoup some $230 million in Isaias costs from ratepayers, drawing additional criticism.
“We assembled the largest workforce ever in the state of Connecticut for that storm response and the vast majority of the costs that are being reviewed have to do with bringing in those external resources, either from other utilities or from contractors,” Judge said during a conference call. “We expect, as we have in the past, that cost recovery would be allowed for these costs, as they were prudent.”
In the same call, Judge conceded that the company will likely be forced to offer discounted rates to Connecticut customers who fall under qualifying income thresholds.
“We will be looking at new rate designs — including possible lowincome or economic development rates — and that may require a possible interim rate reduction,” Judge said. “We clearly are not earning our allowed returns that we have agreed to under a settlement that’s been in place for three years now.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, DConn.,
tweeted Wednesday that Judge’s exit as CEO is “welcome news, but we need more than a change at the top. Our electric utilities should be accountable to the people, not shareholders. Joe Nolan must make customer service & lowering rates his number one priority. I will be watching his actions closely.”
Eversource has 4.3 million electricity and natural gas customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with the company one of Connecticut’s two main electric utilities along the United Illuminating subsidiary of Orange-based Avangrid. Eversource lists dual headquarters in Boston and Hartford, with both Judge and Nolan living in Massachusetts.
In his role as executive vice president of strategy, customer and corporate relations, Nolan has had an array of oversight duties at Eversource, with the company highlighting his leadership of a joint venture with Orsted that will build the Revolution Wind farm supplying electricity from offshore turbines.
In early February, Avangrid hired Duke Energy executive Catherine Stempien to lead its utility operations, replacing Tony Marone who led United Illuminating’s work to restore power to customers.