Healey opposes Eversource rate hike
State Attorney General Maura Healey came out swinging last night against a proposed rate hike that could cost Bay State customers as much as $50 million per year, for a company that is already more profitable than its contemporaries, she said.
“In 2015, NStar reported a return on equity of over 13 percent. Last year, no state public utility commission in the country allowed a return that high. This case is the opportunity for the Department to ensure that the company is not over-earning at the expense of its customers,” Healey said. “I ask you to look under the hood of the company’s proposed multi-year rate plan. My office’s preliminary analysis shows that this proposed plan would allow the company to increase its revenue by over 4 percent every year until its next rate case. This would cost customers approximately $50 million each year.”
Eversource said it has not asked to increase rates since 2005, and plans to use the money to build newer and more environmentally friendly infrastructure.
Eversource Senior Vice President Jim Hunt said, “We’ve identified a revenue deficiency between the expenses we make in our operations in capital and the revenue we collect.”
To close that gap, the company said it must collect $96 million more from ratepayers. The increase would be phased in over two years with greater Boston residential customers who heat with electricity seeing monthly bills go up the most — an average of $12.62 in the first year, and another $1.29 the next year. Commercial customers could see a wide fluctuation in prices, with some bills seeing a 3.5 percent rate cut to a 14 percent increase.