United Illuminating urged to avoid another electric rate hike: ‘We cannot continue like this’

Connecticut’s Attorney General and Consumer Counsel used the start of regulatory hearings this week on a rate hike request by The United Illuminating Co. to dispute the utility’s need for additional money from rate payers.

Attorney General William Tong and Consumer Counsel Claire Coleman both urged commissioners with Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority Thursday to reject UI’s request for an 8 percent increase in electric rates over the next three years. Thursday was the first day of public hearings on the case; if any rate increase is approved, it would take effect in September.

Tong vowed to fight the rate increase vigorously and said “Connecticut families cannot afford yet another increase” even as utility shareholder and company executives are enjoying record profits.

“We cannot continue like this,” he said. “United Illuminating needs to prove that every single dollar they are requesting is absolutely necessary. I can tell you one thing now—there is no way we are letting them get away with an 8 percent increase.”

UI is seeking to increase revenues by $102 million in the first year of the requested rate increase. The company is seeking an additional $34.4 million in revenue over the remaining two years of the rate increase.

Coleman said UI’s rate hike request “lacks merit.” Her office represents the interests of consumers in utility rate cases that are heard by PURA.

“My team has been evaluating their case for months now and we see many major flaws – entirely unjustified costs, incomplete and poorly developed plans, and proposed capital expenditures that simply do not make sense,” Coleman said. “What has been filed so far as evidence does not measure up. My team and I will urge PURA to reject UI’s rate increase application and instead find ways to minimize the impact on consumers to the fullest extent possible under the applicable law.”

Craig Gilvarg, a UI spokesman, said company officials “understand the impacts of rising costs on households.” He said the rate increase the company is requesting is its first since 2016 and is below the rate of inflation.

“As hearings progress, (company officials) will continue to open our books and detail our proposed investments in a clear and forthright manner so we can deliver long-term savings and substantial benefits to customers, build a modern, resilient grid, advance the clean energy transition, and uphold our exceptional record of safe, reliable service,” Gilvarg said in a statement. “Simultaneously, UI has demonstrated a steadfast commitment, and acted with urgency, to help our customers manage the historic increases in energy supply costs this winter,”

The hearings and review of UI rate hike request will continue through the spring and early summer with PURA commissioners scheduled to issue a draft decision on July 21 and a final decision tentatively scheduled for August 25.

UI serves 17 towns in the greater New Haven and Bridgeport area and has nearly 343,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers.